UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TRANSVERSE-MOMENTUM TRANSFER IN INTERMEDIATE-ENERGY HEAVY-ION COLLISIONS

A microscopic optical model formalism for estimating momentum transfer in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions predicts universal behavi or of the transverse component. In particular, for symmetric systems ( A(p) = A(T)) heavier than niobium, it appears that values of P(perpend icular-to)/A are independent of the mass and charge of the colliding n uclei and vary only with impact parameter and incident beam energy. Th is suggests that momentum transfer per nucleon saturates to some limit ing value with increasing mass.