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 dissipative heavy-ion collisions to an arbitrarily small perturbation. Such a sensitivity implies that atomic electrons should influence energetic (≃100 MeV) heavy-ion reactions. The atomic-electron effects are predicted to be ≃100% of the magnitude of the non-self-averaged oscillating component of the nucleus-nucleus cross sections