Synthesis of heavy nuclei using damped collisions: A test

We have measured the angular distributions and production cross sections for the products of the reaction of 859-MeV (E{sub c.m.}=461.9 MeV) {sup 160}Gd with {sup 186}W. We detected fragments that stopped in the 5.775 mg/cm{sup 2} target as well as fragments emerging at 9 deg. - 17 deg., 17 deg. - 90 deg., and 90 deg. - 180 deg. We also made a chemical separation of the Pb isotopes formed in this reaction. An unusually large yield of trans-target reaction products near Z=79 was observed. We compare these observations with the recent predictions of Zagrebaev and Greiner for this reaction.