A Quantum-Mechanical Equivalent-Photon Spectrum for Heavy-Ion Physics

Abstract

In a previous paper, we calculated the fully quantum-mechanical cross section for electromagnetic excitation during peripheral heavy-ion collisions. Here, we examine the sensitivity of that cross section to the detailed structure of the projectile and target nuclei. At the transition energies relevant to nuclear physics, we find the cross section to be weakly dependent on the projectile charge radius, and to be sensitive to only the leading momentum-transfer dependence of the target transition form factors. We exploit these facts to derive a quantum-mechanical ``equivalent-photon spectrum'' valid in the long-wavelength limit. This improved spectrum includes the effects of projectile size, the finite longitudinal momentum transfer required by kinematics, and the response of the target nucleus to the off-shell photon.

19 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Simultaneous Projectile-Target Excitation in Heavy Ion Collisions
• Electromagnetic Dissociation of Nuclei in Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Quadrupole Contribution to Two Neutron Removal in Heavy Ion Collisions

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Coherent gamma-gamma and gamma-A interactions in very peripheral collisions at relativistic ion colliders
• Electromagnetic Dissociation as a Tool for Nuclear Structure and Astrophysics
• Comment on "A Quantum-Mechanical Equivalent-Photon Spectrum for Heavy Ion Physics"
• Probing the quantum-mechanical equivalent-photon spectrum for electromagnetic dissociation of relativistic uranium projectiles