Quantum tunnelling through a potential barrier (such as occurs in nuclear fusion) is very sensitive to the detailed structure of the system and its intrinsic degrees of freedom. A strong increase of the fusion probability has been observed for heavy deformed nuclei. In light exotic nuclei such as 6He, 11Li and 11Be (termed 'halo' nuclei), the neutron matter extends much further than the usual nuclear interaction scale. However, understanding the effect of the neutron halo on fusion has been controversial--it could induce a large enhancement of fusion, but alternatively the weak binding energy of the nuclei could inhibit the process. Other reaction channels known as direct processes (usually negligible for ordinary nuclei) are also important: for example, a fragment of the halo nucleus could transfer to the target nucleus through a diminished potential barrier. Here we study the reactions of the halo nucleus 6He with a 238U target, at energies near the fusion barrier. Most of these reactions lead to fission of the system, which we use as an experimental signature to identify the contribution of the fusion and transfer channels to the total cross-section. At energies below the fusion barrier, we find no evidence for a substantial enhancement of fusion. Rather, the (large) fission yield is due to a two-neutron transfer reaction, with other direct processes possibly also involved.

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The elastic scattering of 6He on 208Pb has been measured at laboratory energies of 14, 16, 18 and 22 MeV. These data were analyzed using phenomenological Woods- Saxon form factors and optical model calculations. A semiclassical polarization po- tential was used to study the e ect of the Coulomb dipole polarizability. Evidence for long range absorption, partially arising from Coulomb dipole polarizability, is reported. The energy variation of the optical potential was found to be consistent with the dispersion relations which connect the real and imaginary parts of the potential

The structure of the three-body Borromean nucleus 6 He is approximated by a two-body di-neutron cluster model. The binding energy of the 2n-α system is determined to obtain a correct description of the 2n-α coordinate, as given by a realistic three-body model calculation. The model is applied to describe the breakup effects in elastic scattering of 6 He on several targets, for which experimental data exist. We show that an adequate description of the di-neutron-core degree of freedom permits a fairly accurate description of the elastic scattering of 6 He on different targets.A. M. MORO et al. PHYSICAL REVIEW C 75, 064607 (2007)

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