ABSTRACT
For collisions between very heavy ions it is exceptional that the nuclei come to distances where nuclear interactions take place without already being excited by the Coulomb field. At such distances further inelastic processes take place through the nuclear fields, leading to the excitation of new modes of high excitation energy like giant resonances. These excitations, together with the multiple excitation of the low-energy surface modes, have a significant influence on the dynamics of the collision through the associated energy loss and deformations of the nuclear surfaces. Nuclear inelastic scattering is much more sensitive to high multipole components of the interaction than Coulomb excitation. In calculating the cross sections for inelastic scattering on the basis of the form factors, one faces the problem that multiple excitation will occur even for grazing collisions. The chapter shows how the concept of a complex potential arises and can be calculated using a schematic model which includes only inelastic scattering of pure harmonic oscillators.
