Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Nuclear Physics A 872 (2011) 1–12 www.elsevier.com/locate/nuclphysa Production of exotic nuclei in peripheral nucleus–nucleus collisions below 10 A MeV M. Veselsky a,* , G.A. Souliotis b a Institute of Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dubravska cesta 9, 84511 Bratislava, Slovakia b Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and Hellenic Institute of Nuclear Physics, Athens 15771, Greece Received 30 June 2011; received in revised form 19 September 2011; accepted 27 September 2011 Available online 4 October 2011 Abstract Experimental data from the literature concerning nucleus–nucleus collisions at beam energies of few A MeV above the Coulomb barrier are investigated in this work with emphasis on projectile-like fragment distributions. In peripheral collisions at beam energies below 10 AMeV, deep-inelastic transfer is shown to be the dominant reaction mechanism. In addition, the mechanism may involve an extension of the nuclear profile in the window (neck) region, observed primarily in reactions with very heavy target nuclei. Isoscaling observed at these energies can be used as a tool to predict the production rates of exotic nuclei in reactions induced by exotic secondary beams.  2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: NUCLEAR REACTIONS: 208 Pb( 58 Ni, X), E = 5.66 MeV/nucleon; 208 Pb( 64 Ni, X), E = 5.47, 25 MeV/nucleon; 238 U( 64 Ni, X), E = 6.09 MeV/nucleon; calculated mass distributions, yields, σ . 90 Zr, 232 Th( 22 Ne, X), E = 7.9 MeV/nucleon; calculated mass distributions, yields, σ , σ(θ). Deduced reaction mechanism features relating to deep inelastic transfer. Comparison with data 1. Introduction During almost a century since the advent of nuclear physics, approximately one half of an estimated 6000 nuclei stable against nucleon emission have been investigated. The β -stable nu- clei, which occur in nature, are only a small fraction of the nuclei between the lines of neutron * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: fyzimarv@savba.sk (M. Veselsky), soulioti@chem.uoa.gr (G.A. Souliotis). 0375-9474/$ – see front matter  2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2011.09.016