Failure of the Woods-Saxon nuclear potential to simultaneously reproduce precise fusion and elastic scattering measurements

A precise fusion excitation function has been measured for the ¹²C+²⁰⁸Pb reaction at energies around the barrier, allowing the fusion barrier distribution to be extracted. The fusion cross sections at high energies differ significantly from existing fusion data. Coupled reaction channels calculations have been carried out with the code FRESCO. A bare potential previously claimed to uniquely describe a wide range of ¹²C+²⁰⁸Pb near-barrier reaction channels failed to reproduce the new fusion data. The nuclear potential diffuseness of 0.95 fm which fits the fusion excitation function over a broad energy range fails to reproduce the elastic scattering. A diffuseness of 0.55 fm reproduces the fusion barrier distribution and elastic scattering data, but significantly overpredicts the fusion cross sections at high energies. This may be due to physical processes not included in the calculations. To constrain calculations, it is desirable to have precisely measured fusion cross sections, especially at energies around the barrier.