Fluctuations in nuclear fragmentation
- Department of Physics, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79968 (United States)
Heavy ion collisions can be used to study the thermodynamics of hot and dense nuclear matter only if the initial mass and energy fluctuations that lead to fragmentation are of thermal origin and survive the disassembly process. If this is the case, the observed fragment multiplicity should be directly related to those initial fluctuations and to the conditions of temperature and density causing them. The feasibility of this scenario is demonstrated with a molecular dynamics study of the evolution of mass and energy fluctuations, and fluctuations of the phase-space density. First, it is verified that the fluctuations leading to fragmentation are indeed early ones. Second, it is determined that different initial conditions of density and temperature can indeed produce varying final fragment multiplicities. The {rho}-{ital T} plane is mapped to the fragment multiplicity with good precision. This mapping should be easily reproducible with existing experimental data.
- OSTI ID:
- 132951
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review, C, Vol. 52, Issue 6; Other Information: PBD: Dec 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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