Charge transfer and pair production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

In this thesis, we investigate the processes of charge transfer and electron-positron pair creation in relativistic collisions of heavy ions. Peripheral collisions are considered, also referred to as atomic collisions, in which the atomic nuclei remain intact. The theoretical treatment is based on a semiclassical model. The movement of the atomic nuclei, that are regarded as classical charge distributions, is described by relativistic classical trajectories, whereas for electrons a description by quantum theory is required. We consider collision systems with nuclear charge numbers ranging between Z=66 and Z=92. Collision energies, given in terms of the total kinetic energy in a rest frame of either nucleus, are in the 1 GeV/nucleon range. In such collision systems the motion of electrons and positrons is relativistic and a suitable description of their dynamics is given by the two-centre Dirac equation. The nonperturbative solution of the time-dependent two-centre Dirac equation is the principal topic of this work. After introducing this model of relativistic atomic collisions, we formulate and investigate analytically a relativistic multi-channel scattering theory.Available from: http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/2001/123//index.html / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman