At energies below the Coulomb barrier the fusion process can be described as the shadow of the Rutherford scattering, but at very low energies it is not valid. However, if we define an effective Coulomb potential, the fusion can be described as the shadow of the elastic scattering relative to this effective potential. Then light systems at very low energy show an anomalous behavior and the effective Coulomb potential is a way to describe it.

• Received 22 September 1992

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.47.1247