Isospin dependence of nuclear multifragmentation in statistical model

The evolution of nuclear disintegration mechanisms with increasing excitation energy, from com- pound nucleus to multifragmentation, has been studied by using the Statistical Multifragmentation Model (SMM) within a micro-canonical ensemble. We discuss the observable characteristics as functions of excitation energy in multifragmentation, concentrating on the isospin dependence of the model in its decaying mechanism and break-up fragment configuration by comparing the A<,0> = 200, Z<,0> = 78 and A<,0> = 200, Z<,0> = 100 systems. The calculations indicate that the neutron-rich system (Z<,0> = 78) translates to a fission-like process from evaporation later than the symmetric nucleus at a lower excitation energy, but gets a larger average multiplicity as the excitation energy increases above 1.0 MeV/u.     

Isospin dependence of nuclear multifragmentation in statistical model

The evolution of nuclear disintegration mechanisms with increasing excitation energy, from compound nucleus to multifragmentation, has been studied by using the Statistical Multifragmentation Model (SMM) within a micro-canonical ensemble. We discuss the observable characteristics as functions of excitation energy in multifragmentation, concentrating on the isospin dependence of the model in its decaying mechanism and break-up fragment configuration by comparing the A₀=200, Z₀=78 and A₀=200, Z₀=100 systems. The calculations indicate that the neutron-rich system (Z₀=78) translates to a fission-like process from evaporation later than the symmetric nucleus at a lower excitation energy, but gets a larger average multiplicity as the excitation energy increases above 1.0 MeV/u.     

Partial equivalence of statistical ensembles and kinetic energy

The phenomenon of partial equivalence of statistical ensembles is illustrated by discussing two examples, the mean-field XY and the mean-field spherical model. The configurational parts of these systems exhibit partial equivalence of the microcanonical and the canonical ensemble. Furthermore, the configurational microcanonical entropy is a smooth function, whereas a nonanalytic point of the configurational free energy indicates the presence of a phase transition in the canonical ensemble. In the presence of a standard kinetic energy contribution, partial equivalence is removed and a nonanalyticity arises also microcanonically. Hence in contrast to the common belief, kinetic energy, even though a quadratic form in the momenta, has a nontrivial effect on the thermodynamic behaviour. As a by-product we present the microcanonical solution of the mean-field spherical model with kinetic energy for finite and infinite system sizes.     

Evidence for spinodal decomposition in nuclear multifragmentation

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.     

Isotope distribution in nuclear multifragmentation

A statistical multifragmentation model is used to analyze the isotope distribution of medium sized nuclei produced in p + Kr reactions at high bombarding energies. The results show that the evaporation processes narrow significantly the primordial hot fragment distributions and washes out almost completely the patterns associated with the isotope distributions in the primary fragments. Thus the calculation supports a scenario in which the formation of hot primary fragments is assumed. From adjustments to the experimental data an excitation energy per nucleon of the initial system is found to range from 3.5 to 7 MeV.     

The thermodynamic model for nuclear multifragmentation

A great many observables seen in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions can be explained on the basis of statistical equilibrium. Calculations based on statistical equilibrium can be implemented in microcanonical ensemble (energy and number of particles in the system are kept fixed), canonical ensemble (temperature and number of particles are kept fixed) or grand canonical ensemble (fixed temperature and a variable number of particles but with an assigned average). This paper deals with calculations with canonical ensembles. A recursive relation developed recently allows calculations with arbitrary precision for many nuclear problems. Calculations are done to study the nature of phase transition in intermediate energy heavy ion collision, to study the caloric curves for nuclei and to explore the possibility of negative specific heat because of the finiteness of nuclear systems. The model can also be used for detailed calculations of other observables not connected with phase transitions, such as populations of selected isotopes in a heavy ion collision.The model also serves a pedagogical purpose. For the problems at hand, both the canonical and grand canonical solutions are obtainable with arbitrary accuracy hence we can compare the values of observables obtained from the canonical calculations with those from the grand canonical. Sometimes, very interesting discrepancies are found.To illustrate the predictive power of the model, calculated observables are compared with data from the central collisions of Sn isotopes.     

Isospin fractionation in nuclear multifragmentation

Isotopic distributions for light particles and intermediate mass fragments have been measured for 112Sn+112Sn, 112Sn+124Sn, 124Sn+112Sn, and 124Sn+124Sn collisions at E/A = 50 MeV. Isotope, isotone, and isobar yield ratios are utilized to estimate the isotopic composition of the gas phase at freeze-out. Analyses within the equilibrium limit imply that the gas phase is enriched in neutrons relative to the liquid phase represented by bound nuclei. These observations suggest that neutron diffusion is commensurate with or more rapid than fragment production.     

Comparisons of statistical multifragmentation and evaporation models for heavy-ion collisions

The results from ten statistical multifragmentation models have been compared with each other using selected experimental observables. Even though details in any single observable may differ, the general trends among models are similar. Thus, these models and similar ones are very good in providing important physics insights especially for general properties of the primary fragments and the multifragmentation process. Mean values and ratios of observables are also less sensitive to individual differences in the models. In addition to multifragmentation models, we have compared results from five commonly used evaporation codes. The fluctuations in isotope yield ratios are found to be a good indicator to evaluate the sequential decay implementation in the code. The systems and the observables studied here can be used as benchmarks for the development of statistical multifragmentation models and evaporation codes. An erratum to this article is available at .     

The equivalence of ensembles for classical systems of particles

For systems of particles in classical phase space with standard Hamiltonian, we consider (spatially averaged) microcanonical Gibbs distributions in finite boxes. We show that infinite-volume limits along suitable subsequences exist and are grand canonical Gibbs measures. On the way, we establish a variational formula for the thermodynamic entropy density, as well as a variational characterization of grand canonical Gibbs measures.     

Reducibility and thermal scaling in nuclear multifragmentation

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.     

Stellar matter in supernova explosions and nuclear multifragmentation

During the collapse of massive stars and type-II supernova explosions, stellar matter reaches densities and temperatures which are similar to ones obtained in intermediate-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. The nuclear multifragmentation reactions can be used for determination of properties of nuclear matter at subnuclear densities, in the region of the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition. It is demonstrated that the modified properties of hot nuclei (in particular, their symmetry energy) extracted from the multifragmentation data can essentially influence the nuclear composition of stellar matter. The effects of the modification of nuclear properties on weak processes and on nucleosynthesis are also discussed. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

The canonical and grand canonical models for nuclear multifragmentation

Many observables seen in intermediate energy heavy-ion collisions can be explained on the basis of statistical equilibrium. Calculations based on statistical equilibrium can be implemented in microcanonical ensemble, canonical ensemble or grand canonical ensemble. This paper deals with calculations with canonical and grand canonical ensembles. A recursive relation developed recently allows calculations with arbitrary precision for many nuclear problems. Calculations are done to study the nature of phase transition in nuclear matter.     

Critical exponents for nuclear multifragmentation: dynamical lattice model

We present a dynamical and dissipative lattice model, designed to mimic nuclear multifragmentation. Monte Carlo simulations with this model show a clear signature of critical behaviour and reproduce experimentally observed correlations. In particular, using techniques devised for finite systems, we could obtain two of its critical exponents, whose values are in agreement with those of the universality class to which nuclear multifragmentation is supposed to belong.     

Constant pressure ensembles in statistical mechanics

A new statistical procedure is described for obtaining the thermodynamic properties of a molecular system directly as functions of the pressure. This procedure differs in principle from that suggested by Guggenheim [3] in that the members of the representative ensemble are envisaged as being in constant mechanical equilibrium with the exterior. The quantal and classical theories of petit micro-canonical and canonical ensembles of systems at constant pressure are presented, and shown to lead to the established results for perfect and imperfect gases, and for a hypothetical one-dimensional system. The conclusion that the statistical compressibility of a molecular system is essentially positive follows directly from the theory. An alternative procedure which leads to a more satisfactory form of Guggenheim's equation is also described, and its relation to the new approach is shown.     

Dynamical thermostatting and statistical ensembles

Dynamical thermostatting constitutes a procedure for computing thermodynamical mean values of classical dynamical systems that is of interest both from the practical and from the conceptual points of view. Here we extend and unify previous partial results, showing that the dynamical thermostatting approach can be implemented in order to simulate a wide family of statistical ensembles of general dynamical systems with a vanishing divergence and admitting an integral of motion. As a particular illustration, the thermostatting procedure is applied to power law-like maximum entropy ensembles.