Nuclear fusion as a probe for octupole deformation in Ra 224

Abstract Background: Nuclear fusion has been shown to be a useful probe to study the different nuclear shapes. However, the possibility of testing octupole deformation of a nucleus with this tool has not been fully explored yet. The presence of a static octupole deformation in nuclei will enhance a possible permanent electric dipole moment, leading to a possible demonstration of parity violation. Purpose: To check whether static octupole deformation and octupole vibration in fusion give different results so that both situations could be experimentally disentangled. Method: Fusion cross sections are computed in the coupled-channel formalism making use of the ingoing-wave boundary conditions ( IWBC) for the systems O-16 + Ba-144 and O-16 + Ra-224. Results: Barrier distributions of the two considered schemes show slightly different patterns. In the case of Ba-144, the difference between them is negligible. For the Ra-224 case, perceptible differences are found in correspondence with its larger octupole deformation. However, the possibility of disentangling both schemes is not guaranteed and it will depend on the available experimental accuracy and the strength of the octupole deformation. Conclusions: The measurement of barrier distributions could be a complementary probe to support the presence of octupole deformation.