A new analysis procedure to extract fusion excitation function with large beam energy dispersions: application to the 6Li+120Sn and 7Li+119Sn

In the present paper it is described an analysis procedure suited for experiments where cross-sections strongly varying with energy are measured using beams having large energy dispersion. These cross-sections are typically the sub-barrier fusion excitation function of reactions induced by radioactive beams. The large beam energy dispersion, typical of these experiments, can lead to ambiguities in the association of the effective beam energy to the reaction product yields and consequently to an error in the determination of the excitation function. As a test case, the approach is applied to the experiments 6Li+120Sn and 7Li+119Sn measured in the energy range 14 MeV ≤ Ec.m. ≤28 MeV. The complete fusion cross sections are deduced from activation measurements using the stacked target technique. The results of these experiments, that employ the two weakly-bound stable Li isotopes, show that the complete fusion cross sections above the barrier are suppressed of about 70% and 85% with respect to the Universal Fusion Function, used as a standard reference, in the 6Li and 7Li induced reactions respectively. Moreover, the excitation functions of the two systems at energies below the barrier, do not show significant differences, despite the two systems have different n-transfer Qvalue.