EXCITATION-FUNCTIONS OF THE NE-20+NE-20 SYSTEM

A differentially pumped windowless Ne20 gas target and a Ne20 beam produced with the ATLAS accelerator at Argonne National Laboratory were used to measure angle-averaged excitation functions for binary decay of Ne20+20Ne into low-lying states of Ne20+20Ne and Mg24+16O, in the region of excitation energy in Ca40 from 51.4 to 58.2 MeV (20Ne beam energies from 61.8 to 75.4 MeV). The Ne20+20Ne mass partition displays little correlated structure and there exists no evidence of intermediate width resonances in these channels with branching ratios comparable to those seen in the Mg24+24Mg system. Angular distributions for the elastic channel are consistent with those obtained using optical-model calculations. The exictation functions for the low-lying channels in Mg24+16O do contain some structures, with widths varying from 400 to 800 keV in the c.m. system. © 1995 The American Physical Society.