Synthesis of heavy nuclei using damped collisions: A test

Abstract

We have measured the angular distributions and production cross sections for the products of the reaction of 859-MeV (${E}_{\text{c.m.}}=461.9 \text{MeV}$) $^{160}\mathrm{Gd}$ with $^{186}\mathrm{W}$. We detected fragments that stopped in the 5.775 mg/cm${}^{2}$ target as well as fragments emerging at ${9}^{\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}}$--${17}^{\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}}$, ${17}^{\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}}$--${90}^{\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}}$, and ${90}^{\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}}$--${180}^{\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}}$. We also made a chemical separation of the Pb isotopes formed in this reaction. An unusually large yield of trans-target reaction products near $Z=79$ was observed. We compare these observations with the recent predictions of Zagrebaev and Greiner for this reaction.