Elsevier

Nuclear Physics A

Volume 418, 23 April 1984, Pages 267-287
Nuclear Physics A

The description of fragmentation as a critical phenomenon in high energy P-nucleus collisions

https://doi.org/10.1016/0375-9474(84)90553-0Get rights and content

Abstract

In an inclusive experiment, isotopically resolved fragments, 3 ⩽ Z ⩽ 13, produced in high-energy proton-nucleus collisions, have been studied using a low mass time-of-flight, gas delta E — silicon E spectrometer and the internal gas jet at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Measurement of the kinetic energy spectra from 5 MeV to 100 MeV enabled an accurate determination of fragment cross sections from both xenon and krypton targets. The observed isobaric yield is given by Y α Aτf, where τ ∼ 2.6 for both targets. The power law is the signature of the fragment formation mechanism. We treat the formation of fragments as a liquid-gas phase transition at the critical point. The critical temperature Tc can be determined from the fragment isotopic yield provided one can set an energy scale for the fragment free energy. The high energy tails of the kinetic energy spectra provide evidence that the fragments originate from a common remnant system somewhat lighter than the target which disassembles simultaneously via Coulomb repulsion into a multibody final state. Fragment Coulomb energies are about 110 of the tangent sphere values. The remnant is characterized by a parameter To obtained from the high energy tails of the kinetic energy distributions. To is interpreted as reflecting the mean squared momentum of a nucleon in the remnant system.

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    Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550. This work was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

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