Analysis of relaxation phenomena in heavy-ion collisions

The transfer of mass, as well as the dissipation of relative kinetic energy and relative angular momentum in deeply inelastic heavy-ion collisions are studied as functions of time. Based on the determination of a parametrized deflection function from the experimental angular distributions, a classical model for the calculation of the mean interaction time as a function of initial relative angular momentum is presented. The method allows to include also those processes which correspond to long interaction times. The model is applied to determine mass transport coefficients from experimental mass (or element) distributions. The resulting mass drift and diffusion coefficients are accurate within less than 30% and compare well with the systematics obtained from the microscopic transport theory. The energy loss as function of interaction time is consistent with the following picture: Fast dissipation of the radial part of the kinetic energy accompanied by the loss of angular momentum with a larger relaxation time.