Multifragmentation in peripheral collisions of relativistic heavy ions

The breakup of heavy ions in peripheral collisions at relativistic energies offers a rich field of nuclear studies such as the investigation of nuclear structure, the production of energetic beams of exotic nuclei and studies of hot nuclear matter. Examples of recent experimental results obtained at GSI Darmstadt with the heavy ion synchrotron SIS will be discussed with emphasis on the nuclear breakup in the domain from distant collisions without nuclear contact by Coulomb excitation, to peripheral collisions with increasing overlap between projectile and target. The production of relativistic beams of exotic nuclei by fragmentation opens up a new area of nuclear structure research.Invited lecture given at the International School-Workshop Relativistic Heavy-Ion Physics, Prague (Czech Republic), 19–23 September 1994.