Elastic scattering of deuterons by 14C from Ed = 4 to 10 MeV

Angular distributions for the elastic scattering of deuterons by ¹⁴C were measured at nine energies between E_d = 4.2 and 10 MeV. Excitation functions were taken in 50 keV steps from E_d = 4 to 10 MeV. A resonance was observed at E_d = 4.5 MeV, which corresponds to an excitation energy of 14.41 MeV in ¹⁶N. An analysis using an optical model plus a single-level formula derived from the R-matrix formalism yields an l-value assignment of l = 4 for this resonance. Of the three J^π values allowed for l = 4 (J^π = 3⁺, 4⁺, 5⁺), the value of J_π = 3⁺ is found to be slightly preferred. Possible identification of this resonance with an analog in ¹⁶O is discussed. The angular distributions measured at off-resonance energies were analyzed with an optical-model potential which has a surface-peaked imaginary well. The energy dependence of the real and imaginary well depths are explicitly determined in the present work for E_d = 4 to 10 MeV. The best-fit optical-model parameters obtained from the present study are compared to those from the ¹⁴N(d, d)¹⁴N work.