Abstract
In this work, the electromagnetic dissociation (EMD) of sulphur projectile induced by two widely differing energies in nuclear emulsions is investigated. Although the percentages of EMD events of the total numbers of studied interactions are relatively small, i.e. 5.7 and 14.4% for 3.7 and 200A GeV interactions respectively, one could extract some results out of them. The emission of a proton through the S-32(gamma,p)P-31 channel is found to be a dominant process (43.8%) at 200A GeV whereas the single alpha emission through the S-32(gamma,alpha)Si-28 channel is the dominant one (34.0%) at 3.7A GeV. Multiplicity distributions of hydrogen and helium isotopes as well as the measured probabilities for the different modes of fragmentation are studied. The comparison of the present results, from electromagnetic and peripheral nuclear interactions, indicates the effective role of the different reaction mechanisms at ultra-relativistic energy (200A GeV). The experimental inclusive cross sections of different fragmentation modes produced in the EMD of S-32 ions at 200A GeV were found to be in satisfactory agreement with the predictions of the combined approach of Pshenichnov et al.