Abstract
This thesis is concerned with three types of reaction of alpha-particles on selected targets. These reactions are elastic scattering, knockout and decay and they are used to investigate the alpha nucleus interaction within the framework of the cluster model. Differential scattering cross sections for [12]C(a,a)[12]C over the energy range 40-170 Mev have been fitted using a Woods-Saxon squared form factor in the real part of the optical potential. This has yielded a linear relation between the potential strengths and incident energy. Elastic scattering cross sections for [16]O(a,a) [16]O and [20]Ne(a,a) 20 Ne at 104 Mev have also been fitted successfully using the same form factor. Cross sections for 16 O(a,2a)12Cg, at 90 and 140 Mev have been calculated and fitted to experimental data. The resulting spectroscopic factors extracted from this are 78 times too large. It is shown that a significant improvement is obtained if a repulsive hard core is added to the a-nucleus potential generating the overlap integral. The half-lives of selected Polonium isotopes using the R-matrix formulation with single folded potentials have been calculated. The extracted spectroscopic factors are found to be in reasonable agreement with shell model calculations. This method is extended to selected superheavy nuclei in particular the 184 isotones and the half-lives calculated. The role of exchange in the a-208 Pb system is investigated within the framework of the OCM. A technique is developed for solving this equation using a basis of Weinberg states. The norm kernel was resticted to contain the one-particle exchange term only. Excluding certain eigenstates of this from the basis used to solve the bound state wavefunction resulted in unphysical effects.