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The role played by the heaviest fragment in partitions of multifragmenting hot nuclei is emphasized. Its size/charge distribution (mean value, fluctuations and shape) gives information on properties of fragmenting nuclei and on the associated phase transition., Comment: 11 pages, Proceedings of IWND09, August 23-25, Shanghai (China)

Recent important progress on the knowledge of multifragmentation and phase transition for hot nuclei, thanks to the high detection quality of the INDRA array, is reported. It concerns i) the radial collective energies involved in hot fragmenting nuclei/sources produced in central and semi- peripheral collisions and their influence on the observed fragment partitions, ii) a better knowledge of freeze-out properties obtained by means of a simulation based on all the available experimental information and iii) the quantitative study of the bimodal behaviour of the heaviest fragment distribution for fragmenting hot heavy quasi-projectiles which allows the extraction, for the first time, of an estimate of the latent heat of the phase transition., Comment: 5 pages, Proceedings of NN2009, August 17-21, Beijing (China)

Isospin diffusion in semi-peripheral collisions is probed as a function of the dissipated energy by studying two systems $^{58}Ni$ + $^{58}Ni$ and $^{58}Ni$ + $^{197}Au$, over the incident energy range 52-74\AM. A close examination of the multiplicities of light products in the forward part of phase space clearly shows an influence of the isospin of the target on the neutron richness of these products. A progressive isospin diffusion is observed when collisions become more central, in connection with the interaction time.

Unstable 10C nuclei are produced as quasi-projectiles in 12C+24Mg collisions at E/A = 53 and 95 MeV. The decay of their short-lived states is studied with the INDRA multidetector array via multi-particle correlation functions. The obtained results show that heavy-ion collisions can be used as a tool to access spectroscopic information of unbound states in exotic nuclei, such as their energies and the relative importance of different sequential decay widths., Comment: 8 figures, accepted for publication in Nuclear Physics A

Cross sections, kinetic energy and angular distributions of fragments with charge 6$\le$Z$\le$28 emitted in 78,82Kr+40C at 5.5 MeV/A reactions were measured at the GANIL facility using the INDRA apparatus. This experiment aims to investigate the influence of the neutron enrichment on the decay mechanism of excited nuclei. Data are discussed in comparison with predictions of transition state and Hauser-Feshbach models., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, paper presented at the First Workshop on "State of the Art in Nuclear Cluster Physics" 13-16 May, 2008, at Strasbourg, France (SOTANCP2008) and accepted for publication at International Journal of Modern Physics E (Special Issue), Proceedings of SOTANCP2008 (to be published)

Correlation functions, constructed from directional projections of the relative velocities of fragments, are used to determine the shape of the breakup volume in coordinate space. For central collisions of 129Xe + natSn at 50 MeV per nucleon incident energy, measured with the 4pi multi-detector INDRA at GSI, a prolate shape aligned along the beam direction with an axis ratio of 1:0.7 is deduced. The sensitivity of the method is discussed in comparison with conventional fragment-fragment velocity correlations., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, subm. to Phys. Lett. B

Multifragmentation properties measured with INDRA are studied for single sources produced in Xe+Sn reactions in the incident energy range 32-50 A MeV and quasiprojectiles from Au+Au collisions at 80 A MeV. A comparison for both types of sources is presented concerning Fisher scaling, Zipf law, fragment size and fluctuation observables. A Fisher scaling is observed for all the data. The pseudo-critical energies extracted from the Fisher scaling are consistent between Xe+Sn central collisions and Au quasi-projectiles. In the latter case it also corresponds to the energy region at which fluctuations are maximal. The critical energies deduced from the Zipf analysis are higher than those from the Fisher analysis., Comment: 30 pages, accepted for publication in Nuclear Physics A, references corrected

Unbound states of $^{10}$C nuclei produced as quasi-projectiles in $^{12}$C+$^{24}$Mg collisions at E/A = 53 and 95 MeV are studied with the Indra detector array. Multi-particle correlation function analyses provide experimental evidence of sequential de-excitation mechanisms through the production of intermediate $^{9}$B, $^{6}$Be and $^{8}$Be unbound nuclei. The relative contributions of different decay sequences to the total decay width of the explored states is estimated semi-quantitatively. The obtained results show that heavy-ion collisions can be used as a tool to access spectroscopic information about exotic nuclei., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physics Letters B

We have observed a bimodal behaviour of the distribution of the asymmetry between the charges of the two heaviest products resulting from the decay of the quasi-projectile released in binary Xe+Sn and Au+Au collisions from 60 to 100 MeV/u. Event sorting has been achieved through the transverse energy of light charged particles emitted on the quasi-target side, thus avoiding artificial correlations between the bimodality signal and the sorting variable. Bimodality is observed for intermediate impact parameters for which the quasi-projectile is identified. A simulation shows that the deexcitation step rather than the geometry of the collision appears responsible for the bimodal behaviour. The influence of mid-rapidity emission has been verified. The two bumps of the bimodal distribution correspond to different excitation energies and similar temperatures. It is also shown that it is possible to correlate the bimodality signal with a change in the distribution of the heaviest fragment charge and a peak in potential energy fluctuations. All together, this set of data is coherent with what would be expected in a finite system if the corresponding system in the thermodynamic limit exhibits a first order phase transition., Comment: 30 pages, 31 figures

An estimate of the average freeze-out volume for multifragmentation events is presented. Values of volumes are obtained by means of a simulation using the experimental charged product partitions measured by the 4pi multidetector INDRA for 129Xe central collisions on Sn at 32 AMeV incident energy. The input parameters of the simulation are tuned by means of the comparison between the experimental and simulated velocity (or energy) spectra of particles and fragments., Comment: To be published in Phys. Lett. B 12 pages, 5 figures

Finite systems such as atomic nuclei present at phase transition specific features different from those observed at the thermodynamic limit. Several characteristic signals were found in samples of events resulting from heavy ion collisions at and above the Fermi energy. The concomitant observation of different signatures of a liquid-gas phase transition in nuclei on a given sample strongly supports the occurrence of this transition., Comment: Invited talk at the 18th Nuclear Physics Division Conference of the EPS Europhysics Conference "Phase transitions in strongly interacting matter" August 23-29, 2004 10 pages - 3 figures. To be published in Nuclear Physics A

Directed and elliptic flow for the Au + Au system at incident energies between 40 and 150 MeV per nucleon has been measured using the INDRA 4 pi multi-detector. For semi-central collisions, the elliptic flow of Z <= 2 particles switches from in-plane to out-of-plane enhancement at around 100 MeV per nucleon, in good agreement with the result reported by the FOPI Collaboration. The directed flow changes sign at a bombarding energy between 50 and 60 MeV per nucleon and remains negative at lower energies. The conditions for the appearance and possible origins of negative flow are discussed., Comment: 12 pages, 6 eps figures, elsart, submitted to Phys. Lett. B

Isotopic effects in the fragmentation of excited target residues following collisions of $^{12}$C on $^{112,124}$Sn at incident energies of 300 and 600 MeV per nucleon were studied with the INDRA 4$\pi$ detector. The measured yield ratios for light particles and fragments with atomic number $Z \leq$ 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. Symmetry term coefficients, deduced from these data within the statistical description of isotopic scaling, are near $\gamma =$ 25 MeV for peripheral and $\gamma <$ 15 MeV for central collisions., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

We look for signals of criticality in multifragment production in heavy-ion collisions using model-independent universal fluctuations theory. The phenomenon is studied as a function of system size, bombarding energy, and impact parameter in a wide range of INDRA data. For very central collisions (b/b_max

The fragmentation of the quasi-projectile is studied with the INDRA multidetector for different colliding systems and incident energies in the Fermi energy range. Different experimental observations show that a large part of the fragmentation is not compatible with the statistical fragmentation of a fully equilibrated nucleus. The study of internal correlations is a powerful tool, especially to evidence entrance channel effects. These effects have to be included in the theoretical descriptions of nuclear multifragmentation., Comment: 13 pages, 26 figures, submitted to Physical Review C

Invariant cross sections of intermediate mass fragments in peripheral collisions of Au on Au at incident energies between 40 and 150 AMeV have been measured with the 4-pi multi-detector INDRA. The maximum of the fragment production is located near mid-rapidity at the lower energies and moves gradually towards the projectile and target rapidities as the energy is increased. Schematic calculations within an extended Goldhaber model suggest that the observed cross-section distributions and their evolution with energy are predominantly the result of the clustering requirement for the emerging fragments and of their Coulomb repulsion from the projectile and target residues. The quantitative comparison with transverse energy spectra and fragment charge distributions emphasizes the role of hard scattered nucleons in the fragmentation process., Comment: 5 pages, 5 eps figures, RevTeX4, submitted to Phys. Lett. B

Invariant transverse-velocity spectra of intermediate-mass fragments were measured with the 4-pi multi-detector system INDRA for collisions of Au on Au at incident energies between 40 and 150 MeV per nucleon. Their scaling properties as a function of incident energy and atomic number Z are used to distinguish and characterize the emissions in (i) peripheral collisions at the projectile and target rapidities, and in (ii) central and (iii) peripheral collisions near mid-rapidity. The importance of dynamical effects is evident in all three cases and their origin is discussed., Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figures, RevTeX4, submitted to Phys. Rev

The quasi-projectile (QP) properties are investigated in the Ar+Ni collisions at 95 A.MeV taking into account the intermediate velocity emission. Indeed, in this reaction, between 52 and 95 A.MeV bombarding energies, the number of particles emitted in the intermediate velocity region is related to the overlap volume between projectile and target. Mean transverse energies of these particles are found particularly high. In this context, the mass of the QP decreases linearly with the impact parameter from peripheral to central collisions whereas its excitation energy increases up to 8 A.MeV. These results are compared to previous analyses assuming a pure binary scenario.