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

Angular distributions for the inelastic scattering of the weakly bound 6Li nucleus from a 144Sm target (associated with the contributions of both the and 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.