A transport theory is developed for description of capture processes in low-energy nuclear collisions. It is based on the picture that a dinuclear molecular complex formed during early stages of the collision acts as a doorway configuration toward formation of a fully equilibrated compound nucleus, and this complex can decay into open binary channels while it evolves toward a compound nucleus. The evolution of the dinuclear molecular complex and its decay into binary fragmentation channels are determined by two coupled transport equations. The formalism, in a local equilibrium limit, is successfully applied to analyze complex fragment emission and fusion-evaporation data from collisions of Si+C, Si+N, and Mg+C.

• Received 28 March 1988

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.38.2610