COLLISION ENERGY-DEPENDENCE OF MOLECULAR FUSION AND FRAGMENTATION IN C-60(-60 COLLISIONS()+C)

Interactions between systems with a large but finite number of degrees of freedom play an important role in many branches of physics ranging from nuclear collisions to collisions between galaxies. We report the first experimental collision energy dependence of the fusion cross se ction for atomic cluster-cluster collisions and compare the results wi th quantum molecular dynamics calculations and a phenomenological fusi on model. In addition, we discuss the similarities and differences to nuclear heavy ion collisions.