Excitation and photon decay of giant resonances from high-energy collisions of heavy ions

Abstract

We develop closed-form expressions for the cross section for the electromagnetic excitation induced by heavy-ion collisions at intermediate and high energies. These expressions directly relate the excitation cross section to the corresponding photonuclear cross section. The effects of strong absorption, relativity and retardation are incorporated from the outset and are shown to be important. We apply our results to several situations of recent interest, including the excitation and photon decay of giant resonances.