Absence of structure in the 20,22Ne + 118Sn quasi-elastic barrier distribution

Motivated by the extreme deformation parameters of the projectile, we have measured quasi-elastic scattering for 20Ne + 118Sn. In contrast to calculations based on known collective states, the experimental barrier distribution is structureless. A comparison with the system 22Ne + 118Sn shows that this smoothing is unlikely to be due to nucleon- or α-transfer channels, and is more likely to be due to coupling to many other weak channels.