Nuclear molecule formation and time delay in collisions of nuclei with Z

We investigated the formation of nuclear molecules and the occurrence of time delays in reactions of the superheavy systems 64Ni + 207Pb ($ Z_{1}+Z_{2}=110$), 132Xe + 208Pb ($ Z_{1}+Z_{2}=136$) and 238U + 238U ($ Z_{1}+Z_{2}=184$. In deep inelastic binary reactions of Ni + Pb and Xe + Pb we observed clear signatures for the formation of long-living molecule-like nuclear systems which rotate by large angles of 180 degree. The evolution of the nuclear molecules was accompanied by large energy dissipation and a strong deformation of the nuclear system. The results from the giant system U + U revealed striking similarities to the ones from Ni + Pb and Xe + Pb , showing that significant time delays still occur in the heaviest accessible systems. The experiments were performed at the velocity filter SHIP at GSI and at the VAMOS spectrometer at GANIL