Impact of octupole correlation on the inverse quasifission in Gd 160 + W 186 collisions

Multinucleon transfer (MNT) reactions offer a promising pathway to synthesize neutron-rich heavy nuclei, but the mechanism of inverse quasifission, as a key reaction channel of MNT, still remains not well understood. We employ time-dependent Hartree-Fock theory to investigate the reaction mechanism, especially the role of the octupole deformed shell in the MNT reaction of ${}^{160}\text{Gd}+{}^{186}\text{W}$. The results show that inverse quasifission occurs when the deformed projectile and target collide in near tip-tip and tip-side orientations, which favors production of neutron-rich transtarget nuclei. Interestingly, the distributions and single-particle spectra of primary products reveal that the $N=88$ octupole deformed shell in light fragments dominates inverse quasifission instead of the spherical shells of $^{208}\text{Pb}$ at a center-of-mass energy of $502.6~\text{MeV}$, thus explaining the experimental observation that the yields of the transtarget products are enhanced in the Au region. Further exploration finds that quantum shell effects in inverse quasifission exhibit energy dependence. These results demonstrate that the octupole deformed shell plays a crucial role in the inverse quasifission dynamics, significantly advancing the understanding of the MNT reaction mechanism.