Observation of multistep Coulomb excitation during ion-atom collisions

Well below the Coulomb barrier energies two colliding nuclei may share the energy via electromagnetic interactions and it can lead to excite the nuclear states of one or both the participating nuclei. This long range Coulombic interaction leading to nuclear excitation is called Coulomb excitation. In the present work, we have studied heavy ion induced Coulomb excitation process in ¹²C nuclei at the sub-Coulomb barrier energies using x-ray spectroscopy technique in combination with the nuclear techniques.