Time Scale for Multifragmentation in Intermediate Energy Heavy-Ion Reactions

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-1-1994

Publication Source

Physical Review C

Volume Number

50

Issue Number

5

First Page

2424

Last Page

2437

Publisher

American Physical Society

Abstract

Fragment-fragment correlations are used to probe the spatial-temporal extent of the emitting source in central Ar36+197Au reactions at E/A=35, 50, 80, and 110 MeV. The experimental two particle correlations are compared both with the Koonin-Pratt two-body formalism as well as a three-body Coulomb trajectory calculation. The spatial-temporal extent of the emitting system decreases with increasing incident energy. Within the context of a three-body Coulomb trajectory model the mean fragment emission time rises sharply as a function of the assumed density of the system until ρ/ρ0≊0.3. If one assumes a fixed density, the extracted mean emission time decreases with increasing assumed charge of the emitting system. Assuming ρ/ρ0≊0.3 the mean emission time τ according to calculations using a three-body Coulomb trajectory model, is ≊115–135 fm/c at E/A=50 MeV and ≊75–100 fm/c at E/A=110 MeV. Comparisons with a generalized N-body Coulomb trajectory model demonstrate that the effect of interactions with other emitted particles is negligible. The prediction of a microcanonical model which includes pre-emission correlations between the fragments is compared to the measured correlation function at E/A=110 MeV.

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