title: Hindrance of heavy-ion fusion due to nuclear incompressibility.
abstract: We propose a new mechanism to explain the unexpected steep falloff of fusion cross sections at energies far below the Coulomb barrier. The saturation properties of nuclear matter are causing a hindrance to large overlap of the reacting nuclei and consequently a sensitive change of the nuclear potential inside the barrier. We report in this Letter a good agreement with the data of coupled-channels calculation for the 64Ni + 64Ni combination using the double-folding potential with Michigan-3-Yukawa-Reid effective N - N forces supplemented with a repulsive core that reproduces the nuclear incompressibility for total overlap.
authors.affiliation: Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mişicu
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Esbensen