Deep inelastic reactions with heavy ions. A probe for nuclear macrophysics studies

The purpose of this survey is to describe a new frontier in nuclear physics and to present prospects of this topic. Beams are now available for heavy ions from Li to Uranium, and they present themselves as a wide range of probes for studying nuclear matter. In the first chapter the main aspects of these probes as well as the general trends of the phenomena are sketched: deflection function, nucleus-nucleus potential, emphasize on collective aspects. Chapter II deals with complete fusion between two complex nuclei, which is considered as the extreme limit of inelastic collision. An analysis is made of the criteria for the existence of a compound nucleus. The de-excitation of this compound nucleus which is highly excited and often shares large angular momenta, proceeds through particle emission, gamma radiation and eventually fission. Chapters III and IV deal of the discovery of a new class of reactions between complex nuclei, the so-called 'Deep Inelastic Reactions'. They correspond to collisions which do not end up complete fusion, although a very strong change occurs in both partners, and a large kinetic energy dissipation. The nuclear exchange during the interaction might be either small or big, but there is a memory of the projectile and of the target concerning the mass asymmetry. The main feature of these phenomena is now rather well described. The various conceptual ideas of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, the treatment of transport phenomena and of fluid dynamics are obviously introduced. This novel description of the 'nuclear fluid' consists in a 'macrophysics approach' and is complementary of the 'microscopic description'. This is obviously because it is dealt with different probes, so the heavy ion accelerators bring another set of tools for exploring atomic nuclei