The optical potential fits summarized in the preceding paper are subjected to a semiclassical analysis of the Ford-Wheeler–Knoll-Schaeffer type. The important broad dips in their farside cross sections, which are essential in greatly reducing potential ambiguities, are found (in partial agreement with a suggestion of Goldberg’s) to be mainly weak ‘‘Airy’’ or rainbow minima, that serve to identify deeply penetrating trajectories. The semiclassical analysis also permits the identification and understanding of a new category of discrete and continuous potential ambiguities, and suggests the manner in which specific features of the angular distributions (such as spacings and depths of various angular minima) determine the Woods-Saxon parameters found by a chi-squared search.

• Received 4 January 1988

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.38.682