Heavy-ion transfer reactions to the continuum: Surprisal analysis and the condition of maximal entropy

The Q-value dependence of the cross section for few-nucleon transfer in the reaction Th232(O16, X), X being N16, N15, C14, C13, C12, or B11, at an O16 bombarding energy near the Coulomb barrier, is obtained from a simple model in which the population of states in the residual nucleus is determined to be of maximum entropy, subject to the one constraint that the mean value of the Q-value spectrum is the observed mean value.