Evidence for Coulomb effects on the fusion barrier distribution for deformed projectile nuclei

Coulomb effects during the interaction of light deformed projectile nuclei with a heavy collision partner have been predicted to modify the fusion barrier distribution leading to a hindrance in the sub-barrier fusion cross section. In order to verify this experimentally, we have determined the fusion barrier distributions from the measurement of quasielastic excitation functions for {sup 16}O(spherical)+{sup 115}In, {sup 28}Si(oblate)+ {sup 115}In, and {sup 30}Si(prolate)+ {sup 115}In systems. For {sup 16}O+{sup 115}In system, the fusion barrier distribution is single peaked, whereas for {sup 28}Si+{sup 115}In and {sup 30}Si+{sup 115}In systems, one observes broadening and well defined structures in fusion barrier distribution, which could be explained by coupled-channel calculations performed using the CCFULL code after including deformation and Coulomb effects on the projectile in the field of target nucleus.