Adiabatic internuclear potentials obtained by energy variation with the internuclear-distance constraint

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to calculate adiabatic internuclear potentials using energy variation with a distance constraint, and applies it to study neutron effects on fusion reactions.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel approach to derive adiabatic internuclear potentials and demonstrates its application to nuclear fusion involving oxygen isotopes.

Findings

Valence neutrons enhance sub-barrier fusion cross sections.

Distortion of valence neutrons influences fusion dynamics.

New potentials improve understanding of nuclear fusion processes.

Abstract

We propose a method to obtain adiabatic internuclear potentials via energy variation with the intercluster-distance constraint. The adiabatic $^{16}$O + $^{16,18}$O potentials obtained by the proposed method are applied to investigate the effects of valence neutrons in $^{16}$O + $^{18}$O sub-barrier fusions. Sub-barrier fusion cross sections of $^{16}$O + $^{18}$O are enhanced more compared to those of $^{16}$O + $^{16}$O because of distortion of valence neutrons in $^{18}$O.