HIGHER-ORDER EFFECTS IN THE COULOMB DISSOCIATION OF B-8 INTO BE-7+P

Corrections to the first-order semiclassical description of the electr omagnetic breakup of B-8 in heavy-ion collisions are studied. Second- and third-order corrections to the Coulomb dissociation of light proje ctiles in heavy-ion collisions are calculated in an approximation for small adiabaticity parameters, Quantum mechanical diffraction effects are investigated in a simple approximation obtained from Glauber theor y. The methods are applied to the B-8 breakup at projectile energies o f 46.5 and 250 A . MeV, Implications on the extraction of the astrophy sical S-factor of the inverse Be-7(p,gamma)B-8 reaction, which is rele vant to the solar neutrino problem, are discussed.