Caloric curve for mononuclear configurations

The dependence of the entropy on the density and effective mass profiles and the caloric curve for the mononuclear configurations was investigated. It was found that a plateau in the caloric curve was a consequence of decreasing density and the destruction of correlations rather than an indication of phase coexistence in the finite nuclei. It was also found that the the mononuclear regime was metastable with respect to binary fission at low excitation energy and to multifragmentation at high excitation. The statistical framework and the results were suited to treat scenarios where experimental conditions were set to favor a population of highly excited mononuclei.