Theory of Coulomb excitation in the collision of identical nuclei

Abstract

A theory of Coulomb excitation in collisions of identical nuclei is developed. It is shown that under the usual quasi-classical conditions the differential cross sections for Coulomb excitation of nuclei (just as the Mott cross section for elastic Coulomb scattering of identical particles) display considerable oscillations with respect to the scattering angle. If the level excitation energy is sufficiently small as compared with the energy of colliding particles these oscillations are described by a simple modification of the exchange term in the Mott formula for elastic scattering. The character of oscillations in the neighbourhood of 90° (c.m.s.) proves essentially dependent on the multiple moment of the transition which points to a possible use of this relation for the unambiguous determination of multipole moments of the transitions.