Woods-Saxon Equivalent to a Double Folding Potential

A Woods-Saxon equivalent to a double folding potential in the nuclear surface region is obtained for the heavy-ion scattering potential. The Woods-Saxon potential has fixed geometry and was used as a bare potential in the analysis of elastic scattering angular distributions of several stable systems. A new analytical formula for the position and height of the Coulomb barrier is presented, which reproduces the results obtained using double folding potentials. This simple formula has been applied to estimate the fusion cross section above the Coulomb barrier. A comparison with experimental data is presented.