The Electromagnetic and Hadronic Diffractive Dissociation of $^{16}O$ Ions

Events which satisfy the kinematics of p( 16 O,CHep), with low excitation energy in the (CHe) system and a low-energy recoil proton, have been identified in the interactions of 200 GeV/nucleon 16 O ions with nuclear emulsion. An eikonal DWIA estimate of the target A -dependence of strong-interaction diffractive dissociation suggests that, on the basis of these hydrogen data, most of the (CHe) final states, previously ascribed to electromagnetic dissociation on heavy nuclei, might rather be hadronic in character. This contamination is very much less important in the dominant (NH) channel.