14N fusion with 13C and 16O at sub-barrier energies

Total fusion cross sections for the ¹⁴N+¹²C and ¹⁴N+¹⁶O reactions have been measured in the c.m. energy ranges 3.6–9.2 MeV and 5.6–12.6 MeV, respectively. Cross sections are also reported for important individual exit channels which were studied by observing discrete γ-ray transitions in the evaporation residues with a Ge(Li) detector. Excitation functions reveal no evidence of intermediate structure in these reactions. The fusion cross sections for ¹⁴N induced reactions on ¹²C, ¹⁴N and ¹⁶O are compared with an IWB calculation using recently published semi-empirical parameters for the real ion-ion interaction potential. Such a comparison supports the view that low-energy fusion studies may be sensitive probes of the nuclear potential in the interior of the interaction barrier.