Barrier-wave-internal-wave interference and Airy minima in 16O+16O elastic scattering

Taking O-16 + O-16 elastic scattering at 124 MeV as an example, we show that a barrier-wave-internal-wave decomposition of the elastic scattering amplitude provides valuable information on the light heavy ion interaction and complements the more conventional nearside-farside decomposition. In particular, we show that the Airy minima present in the angular distributions are due to a barrier-wave-internal-wave interference mechanism, which sheds additional light on the exceptional transparency displayed by some light heavy-ion scattering systems. Extension of these ideas to other fields, like atomic and molecular collision physics, could prove rewarding.