Nuclear multifragmentation time scale and fluctuations of the largest fragment size.

Distributions of the largest fragment charge, Zmax, in multifragmentation reactions around the Fermi energy can be decomposed into a sum of a Gaussian and a Gumbel distribution, whereas at much higher or lower energies one or the other distribution is asymptotically dominant. We demonstrate the same generic behavior for the largest cluster size in critical aggregation models for small systems, in or out of equilibrium, around the critical point. By analogy with the time-dependent irreversible aggregation model, we infer that Zmax distributions are characteristic of the multifragmentation time scale, which is largely determined by the onset of radial expansion in this energy range.

New scalings in nuclear fragmentation.

Fragment partitions of fragmenting hot nuclei produced in central and semiperipheral collisions have been compared in the excitation energy region 4-10 MeV per nucleon where radial collective expansion takes place. It is shown that, for a given total excitation energy per nucleon, the amount of radial collective energy fixes the mean fragment multiplicity. It is also shown that, at a given total excitation energy per nucleon, the different properties of fragment partitions are completely determined by the reduced fragment multiplicity (i.

Study of nuclear stopping in central collisions at intermediate energies.

Nuclear stopping has been investigated in central nuclear collisions at intermediate energies by analyzing kinematically complete events recorded with the help of the 4π multidetector INDRA for a large variety of symmetric systems. It is found that the mean isotropy ratio defined as the ratio of transverse to parallel momenta (energies) reaches a minimum near the Fermi energy, saturates or slowly increases depending on the mass of the system as the beam energy increases, and then stays lower than unity, showing that significant stopping is not achieved even for the heavier systems. Close to and above the Fermi energy, experimental data show no effect of the isospin content of the interacting system.

Influence of Geant4 parameters on dose distribution and computation time for carbon ion therapy simulation.

The aim of this work was to study the influence of Geant4 parameters on dose distribution and computational time for simulations of carbon ion therapy. The study was done using Geant4 version 9.0.

Bimodal behavior of the heaviest fragment distribution in projectile fragmentation.

The charge distribution of the heaviest fragment detected in the decay of quasiprojectiles produced in intermediate energy heavy-ion collisions has been observed to be bimodal. This feature is expected as a generic signal of phase transition in nonextensive systems. In this Letter, we present new analyses of experimental data from Au on Au collisions at 60, 80, and 100 MeV/nucleon showing that bimodality is largely independent of the data selection procedure and of entrance channel effects.

Fission time measurements: a new probe into superheavy element stability.

Reaction mechanism analyses performed with a 4pi detector for the systems 208Pb + Ge, 238U + Ni and 238U + Ge, combined with analyses of the associated reaction time distributions, provide us with evidence for nuclei with Z=120 and 124 living longer than 10(-18) s and arising from highly excited compound nuclei. By contrast, the neutron deficient nuclei with Z=114 possibly formed in 208Pb + Ge reactions have shorter lifetimes, close to or below the sensitivity limit of the experiment.

Isotopic scaling and the symmetry energy in spectator fragmentation.

Isotopic effects in the fragmentation of excited target residues following collisions of 12C on (112,124)Sn at incident energies of 300 and 600 MeV per nucleon were studied with the INDRA 4pi detector. The measured yield ratios for light particles and fragments with atomic number Z < or = 5 obey the exponential law of isotopic scaling. The deduced scaling parameters decrease strongly with increasing centrality to values smaller than 50% of those obtained for the peripheral event groups.

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.