Zdependence of Coulomb dissociation cross sections in heavy ion reactions

It is demonstrated that the naive expectation of ${\mathit{Z}}_{\mathit{T}}^2$ dependence of the cross section for reactions produced via Coulomb dissociation in heavy ions is modified substantially due to the ‘‘apparent’’ charge distribution. The deviations are shown to be important in predicting both the energy and the ${\mathit{Z}}_{\mathit{T}}$ dependence of the cross sections. The effect increases with Q value of a given dissociation channel; for a given Q value the deviation is larger for lower incident energy.