Effect of neutron rearrangement on subbarrier fusion reactions

The role of neutron transfer is investigated in the fusion process near and below the Coulomb barrier within the empirical channel coupling approach. The possibility of neutron transfer with positive Q-values considerably increases the barrier penetrability. The enhancement of fusion cross sections for 58Ni + 64Ni, 32S + 64Ni, 40Ca + 48Ca, and 40Ca + 124Sn is well reproduced at subbarrier energies by the empirical channel coupling approach including the coupling to the neutron-transfer channels. The predictions of the fusion cross sections for several combinations of colliding nuclei are also proposed which may shed additional light on the effect of neutron transfer in fusion processes. A huge enhancement of deep subbarrier fusion probability was found for light neutron-rich weakly bound nuclei. This may be quite important for astrophysical primordial and supernova nucleosynthesis.