The phenomenology of deep-inelastic processes

Abstract

The field of heavy-ion deep-inelastic reactions is reviewed with particular attention to the experimental picture. The most important degrees of freedom involved in the process are identified and illustrated with relevant experiments. Energy dissipation and mass transfer are discussed in terms of particles and/or phonons exchanged in the process. The equilibration of the fragment neutron-to-proton ratios is inspected for evidence of giant isovector resonances. The angular momentum effects are observed in the fragment angular distributions and the angular momentum transfer is inferred from the magnitude and alignment of the fragments spins. The possible sources of light particles accompanying the deep-inelastic reactions are discussed. The use of the sequentially emitted particles as angular momentum probes is illustrated. The significance and uses of a thermalized component emitted by the dinucleus is reviewed. The possible presence of Fermi jets in the prompt component is shown to be critical to the justification of the one-body theories.