Effect of elastic transfer in sub-barrier fusion between similar nuclei

We study the effect of the elastic transfer process on sub-barrier fusion reactions between similar nuclei. The coupling to the elastic transfer channel is described in terms of a parity dependent potential, directly obtained from the transfer form factor. Within the simple barrier penetration model, we find that this effect can account for a considerable part of the sub-barrier enhancement of the 16O+ 18O fusion cross section over the 16O+ 16O case.