PROBING FUSION BARRIER DISTRIBUTIONS WITH QUASI-ELASTIC SCATTERING

Excitation functions have been measured for quasi-elastic back-scatter ing of O-16 on Zr-92, Sm-144, Sm-154 and W-186 targets. A new procedur e to extract representations of fusion barrier distributions is sugges ted and applied. The results are compared with barrier distributions o btained from fusion data and with coupled-channel calculations. The re presentations from quasi-elastic scattering are consistent with those from fusion below the average barrier energy. However, the effect of t ransfer smooths the quasi-elastic representations at higher energies, so that the sensitivity to the barrier distribution is reduced.