Isobar giant resonance formation in self-conjugate nuclei

Abstract

The production of isobars with concomitant giant resonance excitations due to peripheral collisions of relativistic heavy ions is investigated. The interaction is described by a modified form of the central term in the one-pion-exchange potential (OPEP) where the projectile ordinary spin operator is replaced by a transition spin operator which describes the creation of an isobar from a nucleon. The scattering is analyzed using time-dependent harmonic perturbation theory to determine the reaction total cross sections. The results obtained, which are valid for reactions involving self-conjugate nuclei, are applied to the specific collison of 2.1 GeV nucleon 16O projectiles with 12C targets at rest. Cross sections are investigated using two different models for the nuclear spin states. In the first model, the many-body nuclear spin state is reduced, in the spirit of a particle-hole state, to an equivalent two-body state called a particle-core state. In the second model, the many-body spin states are described by unsymmetrized products of individual particle spins. Properties of the spin giant resonance and isobar giant resonance states are investigated. Finally, isobar decay and isobar/pion absorption effects are discussed.