Quasifission Studies Using TDDFT

Abstract:  Synthesis of superheavy elements (SHE) with fusion-evaporation reactions is strongly hindered by the quasifission (QF) mechanism which prevents the formation of an equilibrated compound nucleus and which depends on the structure of the reactants. The collision dynamics of these reactions can be studied using the unrestricted time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) [1–6], as well as the density-constrained TDDFT method to extract the nucleusnucleus potentials and the excitation energy of the fragments. We show recent results and analysis of quasifission and capture cross-sections using TDDFT. Results for mass-angledistributions (MAD) and contact times are presented as a function of orientation of the deformed nuclei with respect to collision axis as well as a function of impact parameter. We compare calculated MAD’s to the corresponding experimental distributions. We discuss the dependence of various observables on isospin and elucidate the advantage of using neutron-rich nuclei in fusion experiments leading to superheavy elements. We also discuss the calculation of moments of inertia and various ways to calculate the PCN probability using these results.