The nucleus-nucleus potential for the fusion reactions 40Ca+48Ca, 16O+208Pb, and 48Ca+48Ca has been calculated using the Monte Carlo method. The results obtained indicate that the technique employed for the calculation of the nucleus-nucleus potential is an efficient one. The effects of the spin and the isospin terms have also been studied using the same technique. The analysis of the results obtained for the 48Ca+48Ca reaction reveal that the isospin-dependent term in the nucleon-nucleon potential causes the nuclear potential to drop by an amount of 0.5 MeV. The analytical calculations of the fusion cross section, particularly those at energies less than the fusion barrier, are in good agreement with the experimental data. In these calculations the effective nucleon-nucleon potential chosen is of the M3Y-Paris potential form and no adjustable parameter has been used.
