Evidence for two-step processes in reactions with spherical nuclei

Experimental evidence for two-step processes in reactions with spherical nuclei is obtained from a study of ⁵⁴Fe(p, d)⁵³Fe angular distributions for low-lying $\text{9}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{?}}$ and $\text{11}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{?}}$ states. Predictions of the coupled-channel Born approximation give excellent agreement with the data.