Delta-Electron Emission in Deep-Inelastic Heavy-Ion Collisions

Abstract

This paper reports calculations of the influence of a reactin time T>10/sup -21/ s in deep inelastic Xe-Pb collisions on the energy spectrum of delta electrons ejected in the same collision. It is shown that the lifetime of the superheavy composite system causes pronounced oscillations of width epsilon=h/T in the electron distribution, which survive the inclusion of multistep excitations and the folding with a lifetime distribution function. This effect may serve as an atomic clock for deep inelastic collisions.