Abstract
Based on both the time-dependent Hartree–Fock (TDHF) and the time-dependent density matrix (TDDM) methods, we adopt a macroscopic reduction procedure to investigate the dissipation dynamics of nuclear fusion reactions. The TDDM method is an extension of TDHF, in the sense that it goes beyond the mean-field concept and takes into account two-body correlations explicitly. To investigate the effect of correlations on dissipation, the collective trajectories as well as the friction coefficients for the reaction ¹⁶O + ¹⁶O →³²S are extracted. Our results suggest that two-body correlations play a relevant role in the fusion process.