Molecular-Orbital Interpretation of theΔl=1ℏTransfer Anomaly in Heavy-Ion Reactions

The effect of the operator causing one-nucleon transfer in heavy-ion reactions in the molecular-orbital (MO) approach is contrasted to that of the usual distorted-wave Born approximation in a simple diffraction model calculation. For the case of $\Delta l=1\mathrm{}\hslash$ transitions, it is shown that the MO approach predicts an angular distribution exactly out of phase with that of the distorted-wave Born approximation. The MO approach therefore offers a simple explanation of the "anomalous" angular distributions recently observed.