Resolution of the fusion window anomaly in heavy-ion collisions

Time-dependent Hartree-Fock theory is used to study fusion in ¹⁶O+¹⁶O collisions. The Hamiltonian density is obtained from Skyrme forces including the spin-orbit interaction. The inclusion of spin has a dramatic effect on the observed dissipation for central collisions. At a center-of-mass energy of 34 MeV, fusion is found for all angular momenta less than the experimental critical angular momentum. Thresholds for inelastic scattering increase to a bombarding energy per nucleon of about 9 MeV. The decrease in transparency is in general agreement with experiment.