Barrier distribution for a ‘superheavy’ nucleus–nucleus collision

Large-angle quasielastic scattering has been studied in a high- Z 1 Z 2 nuclear reaction of the type leading to superheavy-element production by cold fusion. We show that despite the presence of strongly dissipative channels, and the complete absence of fusion, the notion of an external barrier distribution, determined by strong coupling to collective excitations of target and projectile, is still valid. Furthermore, our method allows us to deduce some properties of the deep-inelastic processes in this system.