Probing Cluster Transfer in Peripheral Collisions of ⁴⁰Ar on ⁶⁴Ni at 15 MeV/nucleon

¹ Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
² Cyclotron Institute, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA
³ Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics, Czech Technical University, Prague, Czech Republic

^* e-mail: chryssigiann@chem.uoa.gr

Published online: 8 October 2024

Abstract

This work focuses on the study of the yields and momentum distributions of projectile-like fragments from ⁴⁰Ar collisions with target ⁶⁴Ni at 15 MeV/nucleon, using experimental data obtained in previous work with the MARS spectrometer at the Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M University. Motivated by the current activity on clustering, we focused our attention on the channel corresponding to the production of the ³⁶S ejectile, which may have resulted from the removal of an alpha particle cluster from the ⁴⁰Ar projectile. The experimental distributions were compared with two dynamical models, the deep-inelastic transfer (DIT) model and the constrained molecular dynamics (CoMD) model, followed by the de-excitation code GEMINI. The observed discrepancies potentially indicate direct cluster transfer in quasi-elastic peripheral collisions. By comparing our experimental data with appropriate models, we hope to gain valuable insight into the mechanisms governing clustering and cluster transfer in peripheral collisions in the Fermi energy regime.