Temperature measurement of fragment emitting systems in Au+Au 35 MeV/nucleon collisions

We report on the results of experiments performed to investigate the Au1Au 35 MeV/nucleon reaction. The reaction products generated in the disassembly of the unique source formed in central collisions and those coming from the decay of the quasiprojectile in peripheral and midperipheral ones ~five different impact parameters! were identified through a careful data selection based on the study of energy and angular distributions. The excitation energies of the fragment sources have been extracted through a calorimetric method and by means of a comparison with model calculations. The nuclear temperatures of these decaying systems have been measured from the relative isotopic abundances and, also for central collisions, from the relative populations of excited states. The temperatures of the quasiprojectile disassembling systems are slowly increasing going towards smaller impact parameter. The relationship between temperature and excitation energy seems to be almost independent of the characteristics of the emitting source. The extracted caloric curve shows a slow monotonic increase with increasing excitation energy. A comparison with data derived from Au fragmentation at much higher incident energies is discussed. @S0556-2813~98!04408-2#