Breakup coupling effects on near-barrier inelastic scattering of the weakly bound 6 Li projectile on a 144 Sm target

Angular distributions for the inelastic scattering of the weakly bound 6Li nucleus from a 144Sm target (associated with the contributions of both the 21+ and 31− 144Sm excited states together) were measured at bombarding energies close to the Coulomb barrier. The experimental data were compared with expected results based on continuum discretized coupled-channel (CDCC) calculations. The results confirm that it is essential to include continuum–continuum couplings to reproduce the experimental data. The analysis demonstrates that inelastic scattering data can be a critical tool in testing full CDCC calculations involving weakly bound nuclei.