Sensitivity of nucleus-nucleus cross sections and atomic-electron effects in dissipative heavy-ion collisions

We argue that spontaneous microchannel S-matrix correlations and slow spin decoherence result in a sensitivity of the cross sections for strongly diss ipative heavy-ion collisions to an arbitrarily small perturbation. Such a s ensitivity implies that atomic electrons should influence energetic (simila r or equal to 100 MeV) heavy-ion reactions. The atomic-electron effects are predicted to be similar or equal to 100% of the magnitude of the non-self- averaged oscillating component of the nucleus-nucleus cross sections.