Exploring the role of softness on the fusion dynamics of ^58,64Ni+^92,100Mo reactions

¹ Department of Physics and Materials Science, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala, Punjab 147004, India
² Institute of Physics, Sachivalaya Marg, Bhubaneswar 751005, Odisha, India
³ Center for theoretical and computational physics, Department of Physics, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia

^* e-mail: srana60_phd19@thapar.edu
^** e-mail: bunuphy@yahoo.com
^*** e-mail: rajkumar@thapar.edu

Published online: 18 October 2024

Abstract

The structure of target and projectile nuclei can significantly affect the reaction dynamics at low energies. In the present work, the fusion mechanism of ^58,64Ni+^92,100Mo reactions involving the Mo isotopes exhibiting peculiar soft nature is explored within the relativistic mean-field (RMF) formalism. The cross-section for the considered reactions is obtained using the ℓ-summed Wong model furnished with nuclear interaction potential calculated within the self-consistent RMF formalism. The calculations are done for the two sets of RMF parameters, namely, NL3^∗ and NL1, which give different values for various characteristics of nuclear matter at the saturation. A lower fusion barrier and consequently, a higher cross-section is obtained for the parameter set with comparatively softer equation of state (EoS). On comparing the theoretical cross-section with the available experimental data, an underestimation of fusion cross-section with respect to the experimental data at the sub-barrier energies is noted for the NL3^∗ parametrizations. The match improves for the NL1 set having soft EoS with slight underestimation of data noted for all the considered reactions. These observations infer that the incomprehensible softness of Mo-isotopes also persists in their fusion dynamics, and the nuclear potential obtained within the RMF formalism is observed to underestimate the fusion probability for the reactions involving Mo-isotopes. The compressible nature of Mo-isotopes is inferred to enhance the fusion cross-section, and nuclear potential obtained for parameter set with soft EoS is observed to be more suitable for the description of their fusion dynamics.