Study of Sub-barrier Fusion of \(^{36}\)S+\(^{50}\)Ti,\(^{51}\)V Systems

A detailed comparative study of the sub-barrier fusion of the two nearby systems 36S+50Ti,51V was performed at the National Laboratories of Legnaro (INFN). The experiment aimed to evidence possible effects of the non-zero spin of the ground state of the 51V nucleus on the sub-barrier excitation function and on the shape of the barrier distribution. The comparison of both excitation functions and barrier distributions showed a very similar behavior, down to the level of 20–30 µb. Coupled-channels calculations have been performed including the low-energy excitations of both projectile and the two targets, and the results are in very good agreement with the data. This indicates that the low-lying levels in 51V can be interpreted in the weak-coupling scheme and that the extra proton in the f7/2 shell does not have a significant influence on sub-barrier fusion.