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Suppression of neutron emission after heavy-ion fusion: is shape relaxation affected by a superdeformed minimum ?
Neutron spectra as a function of spin and the neutron multiplicity distribution have been measured for the reaction 233-MeV Ni64 + Zr92. The emission of two neutrons constitutes the strongest decay channel, in contrast to statistical-model calculations which predict the emission of three neutrons to be the strongest by more than one order of magnitude. This is possibly due to trapping in a superdeformed potential well, similar to that giving rise to fission isomers, as the compound nucleus relaxes from the highly distorted initial shape