Hard photons and neutral pions as probes of hot and dense nuclear matter

The dynamics of heavy-ion collisions is studied in an energy domain in the vicinity of the Fermi energy. The early history of the collision is analyzed from the theoretical and experimental point of view in which the message conveyed by bremsstrahlung photons and neutral pions is exploited. The Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck model and the Dubna Cascade Model, both based on similar principles but each adopting different computation technics, are briefly described and their respective predictions are discussed. In particular the emission pattern of bremsstrahlung photons is discussed. The photon production has been measured in the systems ⁸⁶Kr+⁵⁸Ni at 60A MeV, ¹⁸¹Ta+¹⁹⁷Au at 40A MeV and ²⁰⁸Pb+¹⁹⁷Au at 30A MeV and energy spectra, angular distributions and two-photon correlations have been analyzed. We find that bremsstrahlung photons are emitted from two distinct sources that can be correlated with nuclear-matter density oscillations. The properties of photon emission are discussed in terms of collective properties of nuclear matter. The high energy tail of the photon spectrum is interpreted by π⁰ and Δ decay but predominantly by radiative capture of pions. The π⁰ absorption in the nuclear medium is further analyzed by examining their emission pattern.     

Dynamical intermediate-mass fragment production in197Au+197Au collisions at energies ≤15 MeV/u

We present radiochemical data on the production of intermediate-mass fragments (IMF, 11≤Z<≈25) in collisions of¹⁹⁷Au+¹⁹⁷Au at 9, 11, 13 and 15 MeV/u. We demonstrate that the IMFs are produced in two-step reactions: Highly excited heavy nuclei are formed in a binary deep-inelastic reaction, and the IMFs originate from fast mass-asymmetric sequential fission of these primary reaction products.     

Neutral pion production in subthreshold heavy ion collision with16O (38 MeV/u) and20Ne (200 MeV/u) beams

Inclusive production of neutral pions has been studied in¹⁶O +²⁷Al,¹⁹⁷Au reactions at 38 MeV/u and²⁰Ne +²⁷Al reaction at 200 MeV/u. A setup of 10 Pb glass Cherenkov detector telescopes was used to detect the twoγ rays from theπ ⁰ decay.     

Energetic proton emission in heavy ion collisions at intermediate energy: Pre-equilibrium and cooperative effects

Energetic proton emission has been investigated as a function of the centrality in the reaction ⁵⁸Ni + ⁵⁸Ni at 30 AMeV. Protons with energy extending up to a relevant fraction of the total available energy in the reaction were measured and studied. The dependence on the reaction centrality has been extensively investigated and data have been compared with the results of microscopic transport calculations. The more striking observation concerns the extremely energetic proton (E^NN _P ≥ 130 MeV) multiplicity which is found to increase almost quadratically with the number of participant nucleons thus indicating the onset of a mechanism beyond one and two-body dynamics.     

Multifragmentation and dynamics in heavy ion collisions

A midrapidity zone formed in heavy-ion collisions has been investigated through special selections of light particles and intermediate mass fragments detected in the reaction ³⁵Cl on ¹²C at 43 MeV/nucleon and the reactions ⁵⁸Ni on ¹²C, ²⁴Mg, and ¹⁹⁷Au at 34.5 MeV/nucleon, and of neutron energy spectra measured in the reaction ³⁵Cl on ^natTa. Properties of the observables have been examined to characterize the neck-like structure formed between the two reaction partners. For the HERACLES collaboration.     

32S-induced reactions at 10 MeV/u bombarding energy

The deep-inelastic processes of the reactions ³²S + ²⁸Si, ^natS, ⁴⁰Ca, ⁵⁸Ni, ⁷⁴Ge are studied at 10 MeV/u bombarding energy employing a kinematical coincidence spectrometer. From the measured energies, momenta, masses and atomic numbers of two heavy fragments the corresponding parameters for the unobserved reaction products and the reaction Q-values are deduced. It is found that the reactions generally show the pattern of a normal deep-inelastic process which is followed by the evaporation of several light particles. But with much less intensities other processes also seem to occur: three-fragment exit channels and incomplete energy damping which is correlated with the emission of a few light particles of high momenta.     

Blurred images of complete fusion and incomplete fusion: Reaction simulation analysis of fission-fragment angular correlations

We use Monte Carlo reaction simulation calculations to reassess several studies of fissionfragment angular correlations. The reactions chosen are 15–30 MeV/nucleon¹⁴N +²³⁸U and 14.6 MeV/nucleon²⁰Ne +¹⁹⁷Au. Reanalysis by means of these stimulations leads to much lower limits than originally reported for the fraction of complete fusion. We infer that at these energies the probability is very large for the direct emission of at least one light particle prior to fission. This implies that the distinction between “complete fusion” and “incomplete fusion” has become blurred beyond meaningful distinction.     

Space-Time Evolution of Projectile-Like Fragment Emission for 40Ar +natAg Reaction at 30MeV/u

The emission time of intermediate mass fragments (IMF) has been studied as a function of spatial evolution of the emission source for ⁴⁰Ar+^natAg reaction at 30MeV/u, and the spatial-time evolution of projectile-like fragments emission has also been discussed. The investigation for spatial-time evolution of the reaction system shows that the emission time of the IMF mainly depends on the correlation functions and the density of nuclear matter, and that it is not sensitive to the mass number of emitting sources. For high-energy fragments, a smaller nuclear density would lead to a smaller assignment for emission time τ; therefor the τ values extracted from the normal nuclear density could be taken as upper limits of real τ values. For the mid-velocity fragments, their emission times do not change with size of the source and these τ values could be taken as the real values directly.     

Intermediate mass fragment emission in Boltzmann master equation theory of pre-equilibrium reactions

A coalescence model originally proposed to account for the emission of nucleons and light particles in nuclear reactions is extended to account for intermediate mass fragment (IMF) emission. This theory uses a set of Boltzmann master equations to evaluate the time evolution of the occupation probability of nucleon states in the course of the de-excitation cascade during which the IMF are emitted. The internal structure of the IMF and the depletion of nucleon states due to IMF emission are explicitly considered. The theoretical predictions reproduce satisfactorily the experimental multiplicity spectra measured in central collisions of³⁶Ar ions with¹⁹⁷Au at incident energies of 35 MeV/nucleon.     

Proton and alpha evaporation spectra in low energy 12C and 16O induced reactions

Proton and alpha particle spectra have been measured in the ¹²C+⁹³Nb and ¹²C+⁵⁸Ni reactions at E(¹²C)=40 and 50 MeV and in the ¹⁶O + ⁹³Nb reaction at E(¹⁶O) =75 MeV. The spectra are compared with the statistical model calculations. The shapes of the calculated spectra are in agreement with experimental data except for the alpha spectrum in the ¹²C + ⁹³Nb reaction at 40 MeV. The observed evaporation bump is at ∼2 MeV lower energy compared to the calculated one. This discrepancy could imply alpha particle emission from a deformed configuration before compound nucleus formation at this near Coulomb barrier beam energy.     

Multiple-source analysis of inclusive proton spectra from58Ni +60Ni Collisions at 876.5 MeV

Experimental inclusive proton spectra of⁵⁸Ni+⁶⁰Ni at 15.1 MeV/u have been decomposed using three moving sources associated with, respectively, equilibrium, deep-inelastic, and preequilibrium processes. For the last, a new expression, taking into account the anisotropy of preequilibrium particles in the source system, has been applied. The high-energy part of the obtained angle-integrated proton spectrum has been compared with predictions of the diabatic dissipation model.     

Diabatic emission of neutrons and protons in central nucleus-nucleus collisions

Analytical expressions are derived for the double-differential multiplicities with respect to energy and angle for the diabatic emission of neutron and protons in central nucleus-nucleus collisions. Results are presented for⁴⁰Ca+⁴⁰Ca,⁵⁸Ni+⁵⁸Ni and⁹²Mo +⁹²Mo, each system at three bombarding energies around 12MeV/u. The energy spectra are dominated at low energies by the evaporation part and at high energies by the diabatic part which decreases more slowly towards higher energies. In addition to the high-energy tail and the forward-backward peaking, the diabatic part is characterized by factorization of the double-differential multiplicity into energy-dependent and angle-dependent factors.     

Thermal hard-photons probing multifragmentation in nuclear collisions around the fermi energy

Hard-photon (E _γ>30 MeV) emission originating from photon-neutron bremsstrahlung collisions is investigated in four different heavy-ion reactions at intermediate bombarding energies (³⁶Ar+¹⁹⁷Au, ¹⁰⁷Ag, ⁵⁸Ni, ¹²C at 60 A MeV) coupling the TAPS photon spectrometer with two charged-particle multidetectors covering more than 80% of the solid angle. The hard-photon spectra of the three heavier targets result from the combination of two distinct exponential distributions with different slope parameters, a results which deviates from the behaviour expected for hard-photon production just in first-chance proton-neutron collisions. The thermal origin of the steeper bremsstrahlung component is confirmed by the characteristics of its slope and angular distribution. Such thermal hard-photons convey undisturbed information of the thermodynamical state of hot and excited nuclear systems undergoing multifragmentation.     

Proton and α sequential emission in the 16O + 58Ni deep inelastic reaction: A semi-classical approach

The 132 MeV ¹⁶O + ⁵⁸Ni reaction has been experimentally investigated by using coincident charged particle techniques. A closed-form theoretical approach, describing in a simple picture the non-equilibrium component and the evaporative one of the angular correlation between light particles and reaction residues emitted in a peripheral heavy-ion collision, is applied — in the hypotesis of a sequential process — to the (C,N,O)-α and (C,N,O)-p differential multiplicities for the ¹⁶O + ⁵⁸Ni at 8.25 MeV/A deep inelastic collision. From this analysis some reaction mechanism information is deduced.     

The correlation functions and emission time scales for light particles and light fragments in 40Ar+197Au reactions at 25 MeV/nucleon

Two-particle correlation functions were measured for the emission of protons, deuterons, tritons, α, and lithium fragment at small relative momenta in ⁴⁰Ar-induced reactions on ¹⁹⁷Au at 25 MeV/nucleon. Based on three-body trajectory calculations the emission time scales for the particles were extracted from p-d, d-d, t-t, and lithium-lithium correlation functions. The mean emission time was found to decrease with increasing sum of the kinetic energies of the particle in a correlated pairs, indicating the emission of more energetic particles at earlier stages of the reaction than at later stages. The time scale for the emission of lithium fragments emission suggests that sequential binary disassembly occurs in ⁴⁰Ar+¹⁹⁷Au reaction at MeV/nucleon. Mean emission temperature of 3.5_−0.8^+1.3 and 3.6±0.4 MeV were also extracted from the relative populations of the excited and ground states of the respective emitted nuclides ⁸Be and ⁴He.     

中能重离子碰撞中的涨落和中间质量碎片发射的机制

在ＱＭＤ模型的基础上，系统研究了４０Ｃａ＋４０Ｃａ中心碰撞系统的中间质量碎片随能量和时间的演化以及它们的动力学起源．集中讨论了反应机制的跃迁，动力学过程中密度涨落和平均中间质量碎片的关系以及碎裂的时间尺度．发现中间质量碎片随能量的上升和下降伴随着涨落的上升和下降．并预言对所研究的反应，当入射能量为６５ＭｅＶ／ｕ时，彻底解体可能发生．碎裂的时间尺度大约为１４０ｆｍ／ｃ，且随能量的增大，此时间尺度不再减小，达到饱和．     

Proton emission in α-induced reactions at 43 MeVnucleon

Inclusive proton spectra and proton-proton correlations have been measured from α + ⁵⁸Ni and α + ¹⁹⁷Au reactions at energies E_α = 100 MeV and 172 MeV. The inclusive spectra are compared to results of a simple model assuming local equilibration of the energy transferred to the target nucleons. This model describes the energy and angular dependence sufficiently well at angles ? 40°. Due to finite number effects, it also explains the occurrence of differences between in-plane to out-of-plane pp correlations. In addition, the measured coincidences indicate contributions from quasifree pp scattering.     

Forward and backward electron emission cross-sections for 23 MeVu<Superscript>-1</Superscript> C,Ni and Au projectiles traversing C,Al , Ni,Ag , Au and Bi foils

A rather complete experimental study of forward and backward electron velocity spectra from thin foils bombarded with ions at constant velocity of 30 atomic units (23MeV u^-1) was performed. Three different beams ( ¹²C³⁺ , ⁵⁸Ni¹⁴⁺ and ¹⁹⁷Au³⁶⁺ and six different targets ( ¹²C , ²⁷Al , ^natNi , ^natAg , ¹⁹⁷Au and ²⁰⁹Bi of approximately 90μg cm^-2 thickness were used. This procedure allowed to study the evolution of electron emission (velocity and angular distributions) for the [projectile; target] matrix [ C , Ni , Au ; C , Al , Ni , Ag , Au , Bi ] in a wide angular range. The projectile and target dependence of absolute cross-sections for binary encounter-, Auger- and backward-emitted electrons are analyzed.     

Evidence of non-statistical structures in the elastic and inelastic scattering of58Ni+58Ni and58Ni+62Ni and intermediate dinuclear states

Excitation functions and angular distributions of⁵⁸Ni+⁵⁸Ni and⁵⁸Ni+⁶²Ni scattering at energies just above the Coulomb barrier have been measured aroundθ _cm=90° in energy stepsΔE _cm=0.25 MeV fromE _cm ? 110 MeV toE _cm ? 120 MeV for⁵⁸Ni+⁵⁸Ni and fromE _cm ? 110 MeV toE _cm ? 118 MeV for⁵⁸Ni+⁶²Ni. Evidence for structure of non-statistical character has been found in the angle-summed excitation functions; this evidence is corroborated by the analysis of the angular distributions. This is the first time that non-statistical structure in elastic and inelastic scattering is reported with high confidence level for this mass and excitation energy ranges. Attempts are presented to understand the nature of this structure, including the presence of intermediate dinuclear states and virtual states in a potential well.     

Investigation of 91Zr by high resolution (d,p), (p,p′) and (p,d) reactions

Energy spectra and angular distributions of light particles (Z = 3–8) produced in the reactions ¹³C+^{58, 60, 64}Ni have been measured at 105 MeV. Coincidence events between light outgoing particles Li, Be, B and α, p have been observed for the first time in the ¹³C+⁵⁸Ni and ¹³C+⁶⁴Ni reactions. The results show that at least part of the ‘deep-inelastic’ events are due to many-particle reactions.