Pathway for the Production of Neutron-Rich Isotopes around the<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>N</mml:mi><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn>126</mml:mn></mml:math>Shell Closure

Absolute cross sections for isotopically identified products formed in multinucleon transfer in the (136)Xe+(198)Pt system at ∼8 MeV/nucleon are reported. The isotopic distributions obtained using a large acceptance spectrometer demonstrated the production of the "hard-to-reach" neutron-rich isotopes for Z<78 around the N=126 shell closure far from stability. The main contribution to the formation of these exotic nuclei is shown to arise in collisions with a small kinetic energy dissipation. The present experimental finding corroborates for the first time recent predictions that multinucleon transfer reactions would be the optimum method to populate and characterize neutron-rich isotopes around N=126 which are crucial for understanding both astrophysically relevant processes and the evolution of "magic" numbers far from stability.