Decay of Er*160 in O16+144Nd and Ni64+96Zr fusion reactions

The population of evaporation residue entry states in the decay of the compound nucleus Er*160(54 MeV) is investigated in a cross-bombardment employing the reactions O16+144Nd and Ni64+96Zr. Evaporation residue cross sections and entry state γ-ray fold distributions of the dominant exit channels were obtained for each reaction, using a 4π γ-ray detection system. An entrance-channel dependence of the γ-ray fold distributions of the xn products is observed. This effect is described successfully by the statistical model making use of compound nucleus angular momentum distributions obtained with a fusion model that provides a good description of the bombarding energy dependence of fusion data for both reactions. In accordance with recent findings on the decay of Yb*164, it is suggested that the observed differences in the population of the dominant exit channels originate from the primary spin distributions rather than a possible dependence of the compound nucleus decay on the formation mode.