Evidence for spinodal decomposition in nuclear multifragmentation

Collaboration
Mar, 2001
4 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.Lett. 86 (2001) 3252-3255
e-Print:
Report number:
  • IPNO-DR-01-006
Experiments:

Citations per year

20012007201320192024024681012
Abstract: (arXiv)
Multifragmentation of a ``fused system'' was observed for central collisions between 32 MeV/nucleon 129Xe and natSn. Most of the resulting charged products were well identified thanks to the high performances of the INDRA 4pi array. Experimental higher-order charge correlations for fragments show a weak but non ambiguous enhancement of events with nearly equal-sized fragments. Supported by dynamical calculations in which spinodal decomposition is simulated, this observed enhancement is interpreted as a ``fossil'' signal of spinodal instabilities in finite nuclear systems.