Interaction times for damped heavy-ion collisions

Angular-momentum dependent interaction times for damped heavy-ion reactions are deduced from experimental angular distributions. The angular momentum $l$ is related to the experimental kinetic-energy loss assuming the energy loss to increase monotonically with decreasing $l$ and the experimental cross section to be given by the sharp cutoff model. Although the analysis depends on the moment of inertia of the intermediate double-nucleus system, rather short interaction times are obtained ranging from ${10}^{-22\mathrm{}}$ to several times ${10}^{-22\mathrm{}}$ sec. Assuming this time scale, nucleon diffusion coefficients are deduced from experimental fragment charge distributions.