Fermi and Gamow-Teller Strength in Charge Exchange with Radioactive Beams

Abstract

At forward angles, and bombarding energies E > 200 MeV, the (p,n) and (n,p) reactions are thought to be directly proportional to the Gamow-Teller transition strengths in the nuclei. Assuming that this relationship also holds for charge exchange induced by high-energy heavy ions, it would be very useful in studies with radioactive beams. Contrary to this expectation, we show that the determination of Gamow-Teller and Fermi matrix elements from heavy-ion charge-exchange at forward angles is very inaccurate.