Light-Ion-Induced Multifragmentation: The ISiS Project

Abstract

An extensive study of GeV light-ion-induced multifragmentation and its possible interpretation in terms of a nuclear liquid-gas phase transition has been performed with the Indiana Silicon Sphere (ISiS)4 pi detector array. Measurements were performed with 5-15 GeV/c p, pbar, and pion beams incident on ${}^{197}$Au and 2-5 GeV ${}^3$He incident on ${}^{nat}$Ag and ${}^{197}$Au targets. Both the reaction dynamics and the subsequent decay of the heavy residues have been explored. The data provide evidence for a dramatic change in the reaction observables near an excitation energy of E*/A = 4-5 MeV per residue nucleon. In this region, fragment multiplicities and energy spectra indicate emission from an expanded/dilute source on a very short time scale (20-50 fm/c). These properties, along with caloric curve and scaling-law behavior, yield a pattern that is consistent with a nuclear liquid-gas phase transition.

67 pages, 44 figures, all included in tar file

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Nuclear multifragmentation and phase transition for hot nuclei
• Measurement of the complete nuclide production and kinetic energies of the system 136Xe + hydrogen at 1 GeV per nucleon
• Thermal and Chemical Freeze-out in Spectator Fragmentation
• Coincidence measurement of residues and light particles in the reaction 56Fe+p at 1 GeV per nucleon with SPALADIN
• Non-equilibrium emission of complex fragments from p+Au collisions at 2.5 GeV proton beam energy
• Centrality dependence of the thermal excitation-energy deposition in 8-15 GeV/c hadron-Au reactions