In-medium effects are introduced in the microscopic description of the effective nucleon-nucleon ($\mathit{NN}$) interaction potential entitled DDR3Y in terms of the density-dependent nucleon-meson couplings within the relativistic-Hartree-Bogoliubov (RHB) approach. The nuclear densities of the interacting target and projectile nuclei and $\mathit{NN}$ potentials are obtained for nonlinear $\mathrm{NL}{3}^{*}$ and TM1 parameter sets within the relativistic mean-field approach and density-dependent DDME1 and DDME2 parameter sets within the RHB formalism. The DDR3Y $\mathit{NN}$ potential and the densities are used to obtain the nuclear potential by adopting the double-folding approach. This nuclear potential is further used to probe the fusion dynamics within the $\ell$-summed Wong model for a few even-even systems leading to the formation of light, heavy, and superheavy nuclei. The calculations are also performed for the relativistic R3Y, density-dependent and -independent Michigan 3 Yukawa (M3Y) interaction potentials for the comparison. We observed that the DDR3Y $\mathit{NN}$ potential gives a better overlap with the experimental data as compared to nonrelativistic M3Y and DDM3Y $\mathit{NN}$ potentials. From the comparison of R3Y and DDR3Y interactions, it is manifested that the inclusion of in-medium effects in terms of density-dependent nucleon-meson couplings raises the fusion barrier and consequently decreases the fusion and/or capture cross-section. Moreover, the nuclear densities, as well as the relativistic R3Y $\mathit{NN}$ potential obtained for the $\mathrm{NL}{3}^{*}$ parameter set, are observed to give a comparatively better fit to the experimental data.

• Received 24 June 2022
• Accepted 14 September 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.106.044602