Quantal permeation currents in nuclear heavy ion reactions
A new quantal permeation current flowing between interacting heavy ions is identified and validated by exact numerical solutions of a model Schrödinger system. This current is driven by the difference between the depths of the potentials wells on the two sides of the dinuclear window. It is not included in the conventional description of heavy ion processes, which assumes a current dependent only upon the difference between the Fermi energies.Accumulating data on theN andZ drifts observed in deep inelastic collisions also contradict the conventional description. By careful exact calculation with the onedimensional Schrödinger model, the permeation current is here quantified and then extended to three dimensions. The resulting corrections are qualitatively such as to ameliorate the discrepancies between the observations and the conventional description.