Protons from heavy-ion collisions

A mechanism is examined for proton yields from heavy-ion reactions. This consists of two components—one direct, and one involving evaporation—and incorporates Coulomb focusing and shadowing effects. Double differential cross sections, with one free normalization parameter, are compared with published data for ${}_{}{}^{16}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{O}$ induced reactions at 310 MeV incident energy on targets of ${}_{}{}^{27}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Al}$, ${}_{}{}^{90}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Zr}$, and ${}_{}{}^{197}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Au}$. The competition between the direct and the evaporation components at different energies and angles is studied with the extracted normalization factor.