Angular momentum transfer in the deepinelastic reaction 245 MeV32S +64Ni from neutron angular correlations

In- and out-of-plane angular distributions have been measured for sequential neutron emission from targetlike fragments produced in fully kinetic energy released heavy-ion collisions. Fragment spins were deduced from the out-of-plane anisotropy as a function of mass asymmetry, using a semiclassical statistical model. The results are consistent with rigid rotation of an intermediate complex formed in collisions with partial waves confined to a narrowl-window localized just above the critical angular momentum for complete fusion. The extracted values ofP _zz imply rather strong alignment of the fragment spins along the reaction normal.