Description of nuclear structure effects in sub-barrier fusion by the interacting boson model

Recent theoretical developments in using the interacting boson model to describe nuclear structure effects in fusion reactions below the Coulomb barrier are reviewed. Methods dealing with linear and all-order coupling between the nuclear excitations and the translational motion are discussed, and the latter is found to lead to a better description of the barrier distribution data. A systematic study of the available data (cross sections, barrier and spin distributions) in rare-earth nuclei is presented.