Electromagnetic dissociation of relativistic heavy ions

A framework is developed for the quantitative analysis of the electromagnetic dissociation of relativistic nuclei. This includes treatment of multiple excitations of the giant dipole resonance, coupled with calculations of the fragmentation probabilities in the framework of the statistical model. Experimental data on electromagnetic projectile dissociation at relativistic energies are compared to the model predictions and shown to be consistent with first-order excitation followed by statistical decay of the excited nucleus. Strategies for the search for multiple excitation processes and subsequent rare decay modes are discussed.