Reducibility and thermal scaling in nuclear multifragmentation

• DOI: 10.1016/s0370-1573(97)00007-0
• Publication Date: 2003-05-01T00:30:52Z
• Authors: L.G. Moretto; R. Ghetti; L. Phair; K. Tso; G.J. Wozniak
• Keywords: Particle (ecology)

Abstract Recent studies have revealed the existence of a number of reducibility and thermal scaling properties in nuclear multifragmentation. The probability of emitting n -fragments is found to be reducible to the probability of emitting a single fragment through the binomial expression. The resulting one fragment probability shows thermal scaling by producing linear Arrhenius plots. Similarly, the charge distributions associated with n -fragment emission are reducible to the one-fragment charge distribution. Thermal scaling is also observed. The reducibility equation contains a constant whose value, zero or positive, can be related to a univariant (two phase) or bivariant (one-phase) regime. The light fragment particle-particle angular correlations also show reducibility to the single-particle angular distributions as well as thermal scaling . A mass scaling associated with the angular correlations suggests emission from several small sources ( A ≈ 20). The limits of applicability of scaling and reducibility are discussed as well as their implications for the mechanism of multifragmentation.