Critical behaviors in central and peripheral collisions: a comparative analysis

Abstract

Quasi-projectile events from peripheral 35 A.MeV Au+ Au collisions are compared to central Au + C, Au + Cu and Au + Au events in the same range of excitation energy in terms of critical partitions and critical exponents. All the different data sets coherently point to a value E*c=4.5 A.MeV for the apparent critical excitation energy. The critical exponents tau, sigma are compatible with the observation of a liquid-gas phase transition for these systems.

21 pages, 10 postscript figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.C on 6-may-2002