Nuclear rainbow in the 16OÂ +Â 27AL system: The role of couplings at energies far above the barrier

High precision elastic and inelastic angular distributions have been measured for the 16O + 27Al system at a beam energy of 100 MeV. The data analysis confirms a rainbow formation as already predicted by parameter-free Coupled Channel calculations. It also helps to reveal the crucial role of inelastic couplings in the rainbow formation for heavier systems even at energies far above the Coulomb barrier. This feature, well known in atomic/molecular scattering, is experimentally studied for the first time in Nuclear Physics.