Trends of total reaction cross sections for heavy ion collisions in the intermediate energy range

Direct measurements of total reaction cross sections (σ_R) have been performed in the energy range of 10–300 MeV/nucleon for heavy ion collisions. A decrease of σ_R with increasing energy was observed for a wide range of masses of the colliding systems. The data suggest that σ_R reaches a minimum located around 300 MeV/nucleon independently of the projectile target combination. A dependence of σ_R on mass asymmetry of the system is also demonstrated. Trends of σ_R in this energy range are well reproduced by the predictions of a simple microscopic model based on individual nucleon-nucleon collisions. Our data have been employed in this framework to derive a new semi- empirical parametrization of σ_R. Most of the experimental results in the intermediate and high energy range have been reproduced by this parametrization using a single energy-dependent parameter.