Hindrance of heavy-ion fusion at extreme sub-barrier energies in open-shell colliding systems

The excitation function for the fusion-evaporation reaction Ni-64+Mo-100 has been measured down to a cross section of similar to 5 nb. Extensive coupled-channels calculations have been performed, which cannot reproduce the steep falloff of the excitation function at extreme sub-barrier energies. Thus, this system exhibits a hindrance for fusion, a phenomenon that has been discovered only recently. In the S-factor representation introduced to quantify the hindrance, a maximum is observed at E-s=120.6 MeV, which corresponds to 90% of the reference energy E-s(ref), a value expected from systematics of closed-shell systems. A systematic analysis of Ni-induced fusion reactions leading to compound nuclei with mass A=100-200 is presented in order to explore a possible dependence of fusion hindrance on nuclear structure.