Inelastic interactions between nuclei at high energies

A theory of nucleus-nucleus collisions has been developed for kinetic energies substantially in excess of the binding energy. The very high pressure produced in the compound system as a result of the fusion of the two colliding nuclei is the reason for the subsequent hydrodynamic expansion of the nuclear medium. The energy and angular distributions of the reaction products are investigated. The charge distribution is also determined in the case where the nucleon and ion components of the reaction products are predominant. A solution is found for the expansion into vacuum of a sphere in which the initially uniformly distributed material is initially at rest and at an ultrarelativistic temperature.