Influence of hexadecupole deformation and role of orientation in capture reactions with 48Ca projectiles leading to superheavy nuclei -: art. no. 054601

The capture cross sections and barrier distributions are investigated for reactions with Ca-48 projectiles leading to some of the most recently discovered superheavy nuclei. The Wong's formula and the coupled-channel method (which takes into account the excitation of rotational states of the ground state band of the target nucleus) are used to assess the role of the hexadecupole deformations of the target on the capture cross sections of fusion reactions leading to the recently discovered superheavy nuclei (286)112, (292)114, and (296)116. The contribution of orientations other than the pole-pole one in the cross sections is substantiated for increasing bombarding energy.