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In the Fermi energy domain, the temperature of hot nuclei can be determined using the energy spectra of evaporated light charged particles. But this method of measurement is not without ...difficulties both theoretical and experimental. The present study aims to disentangle the respective influences of different factors on the quality of this measurement: the physics, the detection (a
4
π
detector array such as INDRA) and the experimental procedure. This analysis demonstrates the possibility of determining from an energy spectrum, with an accuracy of about 10%, the true apparent temperature felt by a given type of particle emitted from a hot nucleus. This temperature allows to deduce the initial temperature using an appropriate method. However, three conditions are necessary: a perfect particle detector, important statistics and very weak secondary emissions. According to the GEMINI event generator, for hot intermediate mass nuclei, only deuterons and tritons could meet these conditions. In this case the determination may be better than 15%. With a realistic experimental device, insufficient angular resolution and topological distortions, caused by detection, can distort spectra to the point where it is very difficult to determine the apparent temperature correctly. Experimental reconstruction of the moving frame of the hot nucleus can also be responsible for this deterioration.
Distributions of the largest fragment charge, Zmax, in multifragmentation reactions around the Fermi energy can be decomposed into a sum of a Gaussian and a Gumbel distribution, whereas at much ...higher or lower energies one or the other distribution is asymptotically dominant. We demonstrate the same generic behavior for the largest cluster size in critical aggregation models for small systems, in or out of equilibrium, around the critical point. By analogy with the time-dependent irreversible aggregation model, we infer that Zmax distributions are characteristic of the multifragmentation time scale, which is largely determined by the onset of radial expansion in this energy range.
Abstract
The recently coupled INDRA-FAZIA apparatus offers unique opportunities to investigate heavy ion collisions at Fermi energies by combining the optimal identification capabilities of FAZIA and ...the large angular coverage of INDRA. We present a selection of the results of the analysis of the first experimental campaign performed with INDRA-FAZIA, in which the four reactions
58,64
Ni+
58,64
Ni have been studied at two different beam energies (32 and 52 MeV/nucleon) in the intermediate energy regime. The present work is focused on the isospin diffusion effects in semiperipheral and peripheral collisions. A stronger isospin equilibration is found at 32 MeV/nucleon than at 52 MeV/nucleon, as expected due to a shorter projectile-target interaction time in the latter case.
An atomic clock based on x-ray fluorescence yields has been used to estimate the mean characteristic time for fusion followed by fission in reactions 238U + 64Ni at 6.6 MeV/A. Inner shell vacancies ...are created during the collisions in the electronic structure of the possibly formed Z=120 compound nuclei. The filling of these vacancies accompanied by a x-ray emission with energies characteristic of Z=120 can take place only if the atomic transitions occur before nuclear fission. Therefore, the x-ray yield characteristic of the united atom with 120 protons is strongly related to the fission time and to the vacancy lifetimes. K x rays from the element with Z=120 have been unambiguously identified from a coupled analysis of the involved nuclear reaction mechanisms and of the measured photon spectra. A minimum mean fission time τ(f)=2.5×10(-18) s has been deduced for Z=120 from the measured x-ray multiplicity.
By using freeze-out properties of multifragmenting hot nuclei produced in quasifusion central
129
Xe
+
nat
Sn
collisions at different beam energies (32, 39, 45 and 50 AMeV) which were estimated by ...means of a simulation based on experimental data collected by the
4
π
INDRA multidetector, heat capacity in the thermal excitation energy range 4–12.5 AMeV was calculated from total kinetic energies and multiplicities at freeze-out. The microcanonical formulation was employed. Negative heat capacity which signs a first order phase transition for finite systems is observed and confirms previous results using a different method.
The charge distribution of the heaviest fragment detected in the decay of quasiprojectiles produced in intermediate energy heavy-ion collisions has been observed to be bimodal. This feature is ...expected as a generic signal of phase transition in nonextensive systems. In this Letter, we present new analyses of experimental data from Au on Au collisions at 60, 80, and 100 MeV/nucleon showing that bimodality is largely independent of the data selection procedure and of entrance channel effects. An estimate of the latent heat of the transition is extracted.
Simulations based on experimental data obtained from multifragmenting quasi-fused nuclei produced in central Xe129+natSn collisions have been used to deduce event by event freeze-out properties in ...the thermal excitation energy range 4–12 AMeV S. Piantelli, et al., INDRA Collaboration, Nucl. Phys. A 809 (2008) 111. From these properties and the temperatures deduced from proton transverse momentum fluctuations, constrained caloric curves have been built. At constant average volumes caloric curves exhibit a monotonic behaviour whereas for constrained pressures a backbending is observed. Such results support the existence of a first order phase transition for hot nuclei.
We present a model-independent method to reconstruct the impact parameter distributions of experimental data for intermediate energy heavy ion collisions, adapted from a recently proposed approach ...for ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. The method takes into account the fluctuations which are inherent to the relationship between any experimental observable and the impact parameter in this energy range. We apply the method to the very large dataset on heavy ion collisions in the energy range 20-100 MeV/nucleon obtained with the INDRA multidetector since 1993, for two observables which are the most commonly used for the estimation of impact parameters in this energy range. The mean impact parameters deduced with this new method for "central" collisions selected using typical observable cuts are shown to be significantly larger than those found when fluctuations are neglected, and as expected the difference increases as bombarding energy decreases. In addition, we will show that this new approach may provide previously inaccessible experimental constraints for transport models, such as an estimation of the extrapolated mean value of experimental observables for b = 0 collisions. The ability to give more realistic, model-independent, estimations of the impact parameters associated to different experimental datasets should improve the pertinence of comparisons with transport model calculations which are essential to better constrain the equation of state of nuclear matter.
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