Particle–γ coincidences and coplanarity in the 32S + 24Mg binary reaction

The reaction 32S (165.4 MeV) + 24Mg is studied using the binary reaction spectrometer (BRS) coupled to the Euroball Ge-detector array. Particle–particle–γ and particle–γ–γ coincidences have been examined together with γ–γ-only coincidences for the fusion-evaporation residues. Recent reports of evidence for hyper-deformation from angular correlations in similar data are investigated. Analogous out-of-plane angular correlations are observed but attributed to reactions with the target contaminants 16O and 12C. This is consistent with the contamination observed in the γ–γ-only data.