Relativistic Heavy Ion Excitation of Giant Resonances

Giant resonances and giant resonances built on other giant resonances in nuclei are observed with very large cross sections in relativistic heavy ion collisions. A theoretical effort is underway to understand the reaction mechanism which leads to this process, as well as a better understanding of the microscopic properties of multiphonon states, e.g., their strength, energy centroids, widths and anharmonicities.