Fusion reactions with the one-neutron halo nucleus ¹⁵C

¹ Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA
² Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008, USA
³ Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
⁴ Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel
⁵ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 USA
⁶ Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, Chicago, IL 60637 USA

^a e-mail: malcorta@anl.gov

Abstract

We have for the first time studied the fusion-fission excitation functions for the systems ^14,15C + ²³²Th at energies in the vicinity of the Coulomb barrier. At energies below the barrier, the fusion cross section of the halo nucleus ¹⁵C showed an enhancement by a factor of 2-5, while the fusion cross section for ¹⁴C shows a similar trend to that of ^12,13C.