Fusion suppression and sub-barrier breakup of weakly bound nuclei

The mechanism for the large suppression of complete fusion in the Be-9+Pb-208 reaction has been investigated through measurement of sub-barrier breakup of Be-9. Excluding breakup through the Be-8 ground state, whose lifetime is too long, a prompt breakup component remains, having sufficient probability to explain the observed suppression of complete fusion. This appears to be associated with interactions at the nuclear surface. The fusion suppression is predicted to be almost proportional to the charge of the target nucleus, making it most significant in reactions with heavy nuclei.