Signals for the transition from liquid to gas in hot nuclei

  • V. E. Viola
  • , T. Lefort
  • , L. Beaulieu
  • , K. Kwiatkowski
  • , G. Wang
  • , R. De Souza
  • , L. Pienkowski
  • , A. Botvina
  • , H. Breuer
  • , D. Durand
  • , R. G. Korteling
  • , R. Laforest
  • , E. Martin
  • , E. Ramakrishnan
  • , D. Rowland
  • , A. Ruangma
  • , E. Winchester
  • , S. J. Yennello

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

Hot nuclei produced in 5-15 GeV proton-, pion-and antiproton-induced reactions on 197Au have been studied with the Indiana Silicon Sphere (ISiS) charged-particle detector array at the Brookhaven AGS accelerator. Each event has been reconstructed from the data to determine the excitation energy, charge and mass of the emitting source. Using E*/A as a sorting variable, the IMF kinetic energy spectra have been examined to assess the degree of thermal expansion in these reactions. Relative to SMM and SIMON-explosion calculations, the data suggest a weak extra thermal expansion energy above E*/A ≈ 5 MeV. IMF-IMF correlation functions show an order-of-magnitude decrease in the relative emission time in the interval E*/A ≈ 2-5 MeV. Above this value, a constant limiting time of 20-50 fm/c is found. These observations are consistent with the transition from liquid to vapor due to thermal heating.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)267-274
Number of pages8
JournalNuclear Physics A
Volume681
Issue number1-4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 29 2001

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