A Study of the Coulomb Dissociation of 8B and the 7Be(p, gamma)8B Reaction

We study the breakup reactions of 8B projectiles in high energy (50 and 250 MeV/u) collisions with heavy nuclear targets (208Pb). The intrinsic nuclear wave functions are calculated using a simple model, as well as a simple optical potential. We demonstrate that nuclear effects are negligible and evaluate the contributions of various (E1, E2 and M1) multipolarities. A good agreement with measured data is obtained with insignificant M1 contribution (at 50 MeV/u) and very small E2 contribution.