Electromagnetic dissociation of 3.7 A GeV 24Mg and 28Si projectiles in nuclear emulsion Original Research Article

This paper presents exhaustively the results of the electromagnetic dissociation of 3.7A GeV 24Mg and 28Si projectiles in nuclear emulsion. The reaction mechanism involved in the electromagnetic collisions and the virtual photon spectra are discussed in the framework of the classical model of Weizsäcker and Williams. The number of electromagnetic interactions, the mean free paths, the production cross sections, the charge spectra of projectile fragments and the decay modes of the visible channels are analyzed and their dependences on the projectile charge and the incident energy are investigated. The present values are obtained in systematic agreement with those found experimentally and theoretically. The emission of a single hydrogen isotope is the dominant process in all samples and shows a similar energy spectrum. The relative rate as a function of the threshold energy for various reaction channels are parameterized in terms of an exponential function.