$E1-E2$ interference in the Coulomb dissociation of $^8$B

Abstract

We investigate the effects arising out of the $E1 - E2$ interference in the Coulomb dissociation of $^8$B at beam energies below and around 50 MeV/nucleon. The theory has been formulated within a first order semiclassical scheme of Coulomb excitation, in which both the ground state and the continuum state wave functions of $^8$B enter as inputs. We find that the magnitude of the interference could be large in some cases. However, there are some specific observables which are free from the effects of the $E1 - E2$ interference, which is independent of the models used to describe the structure of $^8$B. This will be useful for the analysis of the breakup data in relation to the extraction of the astrophysical factor $S_{17}(0)$.