The heavy-ion spin–orbit interaction Original Research Article

Vector polarization in a heavy-ion collision is influenced by coupling to inelastic channels. In the adiabatic approximation the coupling can be represented by an energy-independent induced spin–orbit interaction. The present paper presents a generalization which includes nonadiabatic effects as well as a contribution from the ground-state quadrupole moment. The derivation is based on second-order perturbation theory. The approximate effective spin–orbit potential includes the effects of the coupling to an inelastic channel for all values of the interaction time τ0. It reduces to the adiabatic approximation when τ0Δε/ℏ⪢1 where Δε is the channel excitation energy. There is an application to the vector polarization observed in the scattering of 6Li and 7Li by 58Ni.