Reorientation Effect in Coulomb Excitation

Abstract

The semiclassical treatment of the effect of the reorientation of the spin of the target nucleus during a collision resulting in Coulomb excitation is presented. It is found that the effect vanishes for zero excitation, but that it may be appreciable for finite excitation. The effect on the angular distribution of the photons is similarly found to vanish for head-on collisions. Three different types of experiments involving the measurement of the angular distribution of the photons are discussed. Typical numerical results for comparison with experiment are presented and the possibilities offered by bombardment with heavy ions are noted.