Electromagnetic dissociation of nuclei in heavy-ion collisions

Large discrepancies have been observed between measured Electromagnetic Dissociation (ED) cross sections and the predictions of the semiclassical Weizaecker-Williams-Fermi method. The authors examine the validity of the semiclassical approximation by calculating the total cross section for electromagnetic excitation of a nuclear target by a spinless projectile in first Born approximation, neglecting recoil. The final result is expressed in terms of correlation functions and convoluted densities in configuration space. In addition, cross sections are calculated using a phenomenological momentum space cutoff designed to model final state interactions. For moderate projectile energies, the calculated ED cross section is found to be smaller than the semiclassical result, in qualitative agreement with experiment