Charge equilibration and mass transfer in heavy-ion reactions in a collective model

Transfer processes in deep inelastic collisions are treated by introducing appropriate collective degrees of freedom. They are the charge and mass asymmetries, and the distance between the centers of the nuclei. The corresponding inertial parameters are calculated using the theory of ideal fluids. This liquid drop model reproduces the relaxation times of charge equilibration and allows us to calculate the centroid of the mass distribution as a function of contact time as well as production cross sections. (author)