ABSTRACT
Elastic scattering provides a rich field for exploration of the ion-ion potential and the semiclassical description. Because of the Coulomb excitation and of the nuclear reactions which take place at the distance where the ion-ion potential is felt, one has also to take into account the depopulation of the elastic channel. This is usually done for "light" heavy-ion reactions through an imaginary potential. The semiclassical treatment of elastic scattering gives a simple mechanical picture which can easily be generalized to include inelastic processes and transfer reactions. The differential cross-section for elastic scattering has been measured for many different combinations of target and projectile where at least one of the partners is relatively light. In collisions where both nuclei are heavy it is more difficult to detect the elastic events because of the energy resolution needed. In this case the elastic differential cross section is essentially the Rutherford cross-section multiplied by the probability of the nuclei staying in their ground state.
