Threshold anomaly in non-central forces

The behaviour of the threshold anomaly for non-central potentials, which account for collective excitations in heavy-ion collisions, is investigated. It is shown that the non-central potentials should exhibit an energy dependence at energies in the vicinity of the Coulomb barrier. This energy dependence is, however, different from that of the elastic optical potential, occurring at lower energies. It if further shown that there are corrections to the traditional collective model such that, if the transition potential is expressed as the derivative of the optical potential, the corresponding deformation length will be complex and energy-dependent. Simple model calculations are presented.