Relativistic Coulomb excitation in 32Mg near 200 MeV/nucleon with a thick target

Intermediate-energy Coulomb excitation of Mg-32 using in-beam gamma-ray spectroscopy with a relatively thick lead target was studied at a beam energy of 195 MeV/nucleon at the RIKEN Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF). The angular distribution of the inelastic scattering was analyzed with distorted-wave calculations taking into account both the Coulomb and the nuclear excitation contributions. A B(E2) value of 432(51) e(2) fm(4) was extracted, which agrees with most of the previously reported results obtained at several tens of MeV/nucleon. Our investigation demonstrates that the electromagnetic properties of exotic nuclei can be studied with Coulomb excitation at beam energies of a few hundreds of MeV/nucleon, where a thicker target can be used to increase the excitation yields.