Limitation on complete fusion during heavy-ion collisions

In a recent paper Lefort and collaborators have extracted a critical distance of approach as the mechanism limiting fusion of two heavy ions. In this comment it is shown that this analysis does not depend on the specific model used for the calculation of the ion-ion potential. Furthermore an expression is derived to analyze both high- and low-energy fusion data on the same basis. It is concluded that all existing data are compatible with the existence of a critical distance. However, data spanning a larger range of energies and being more accurate at high energies are needed for a final check of the critical distance hypothesis.NUCLEAR REACTIONS Heavy-ion complete fusion; critical distance of approach.