Universal characteristics of transverse momentum transfer in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions.

A microscopic optical model formalism for estimating momentum transfer in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions predicts universal behavior of the transverse component. In particular, for symmetric systems (Ap = AT) heavier than niobium, it appears that values of P perpendicular/A are independent of the mass and charge of the colliding nuclei and vary only with impact parameter and incident beam energy. This suggests that momentum transfer per nucleon saturates to some limiting value with increasing mass.