Looking at DIC through an l-window

The energy spectra and angular distributions observed in deep inelastic collisions (DIC) between heavy ions are usually ascribed to statistical fluctuations caused by the large excitation energies involved. Arguments are given that fluctuations due to quantal effects may also be important and an expression is derived for the double differential cross section d2sigma/dthetadQ (theta is the scattering angle, Q the energy loss) which contains only these latter fluctuations. The typical features observed are reproduced by the theory which, apart from a overall normalization factor, contains just one parameter. (Auth.)