Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Abrasion-ablation model description of galactic heavy-ion fragmentation

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6857597

The fragmentation of high-energy galactic heavy ions by nuclear interactions with arbitrary target nuclei is described within the context of a simple abrasion-ablation fragmentation model. The abrasion part of the theory utilizes a quantum-mechanical formalism based upon an optical model potential approximation to the exact nucleus-nucleus multiple-scattering series. Nuclear charge distributions of the excited prefragments are calculated using either a hypergeometric distribution or a method based upon the zero-point oscillations of the giant dipole resonance. The excitation energy of the prefragment is estimated from the geometric clean-cut abrasion-ablation model. The decay probabilities for the various particle emission channels, in the ablation stage of the fragmentation, are obtained from the EVAP-4 Monte Carlo computer program. Elemental production cross sections for 1.88-GeV/nucleon iron colliding with carbon, silver, and lead targets are calculated and compared with experimental data and with the predictions from the semiempirical relations of Silberberg and Tsao.

Research Organization:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Hampton, VA (USA). Langley Research Center
OSTI ID:
6857597
Report Number(s):
N-84-22396; NASA-TP-2305; L-15763
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English