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Published on: August 18, 2017
Evidence for spinodal decomposition in nuclear multifragmentation
B Borderie1, G Tăbăcaru, P Chomaz
1Institut de Physique Nucléaire, IN2P3-CNRS, F-91406 Orsay Cedex, France.
Abstract:
Multifragmentation of a "fused system" was observed for central collisions between 32 MeV/nucleon 129Xe and (nat)Sn. Most of the resulting charged products were well identified due to the high performances of the INDRA 4pi array. Experimental higher-order charge correlations for fragments show a weak but nonambiguous 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.
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