Coupled-channels treatment of excitation and charge transfer inU92++U91+collisions at 1 and 0.5 GeV/u

Fully relativistic, two-center, coupled-channels calculations for atomic collisions of high-Z ions at arbitrary impact parameters have been performed for the first time. With the use of a set of twenty atomic Dirac basis states, detailed predictions for state-to-state excitation and charge-transfer cross sections in ${\mathrm{U}}^{92+}$+${\mathrm{U}}^{91+}$ collisions at 1 and 0.5 GeV/u are presented. It is shown that relativistically induced magnetic effects give rise to unusual long-range couplings which affect certain excitation cross sections.