Fragmentation of 200 and 244 MeV/u carbon beams in thick tissue-like absorbers.

Stacks consisting of thin CR-39 sheets sandwiched between thick lucite and water absorbers were perpendicularly bombarded by 12C ions at 200 and 244 MeV/u. Track radius distributions representing the charge composition of the fragmented beams were automatically measured by a particle track analysis system. After analysis of the nuclear charge distributions, the total charge removal cross-sections and elemental production cross-sections of fragments with atomic numbers from 5 to 3, were obtained down to the lower energies (approximately 50 and 100 MeV/u, respectively). It has been found that the measured total charge removal cross-section agrees with theoretical predictions within approximately 10% and very well with previous experiments in corresponding energy regions. Two model calculations for production of B fragment are in good agreement with our measured data while a third model overestimates it by approximately 12%. Theoretical cross-sections for Be and Li fragments differ strongly among the different models and from measured values.