TEMPORAL AND THERMAL-PROPERTIES OF INTERMEDIATE-MASS FRAGMENTS FROM THE S-32+NI-58 REACTION AT 30 AMEV

Abstract

Information on thermal and temporal aspects of intermediate-mass fragment (IMF) formation was obtained by studying correlations between (a) two IMFs, (b) one IMF and one a: particle, and (c) one heavy residue and one ct particle produced in collisions of 960 MeV S-32 projectiles with Ni-58. The fragments and/or light particles were detected in the ARGUS multidetector array at the VICKSI accelerator of the HMI Berlin. The relative-energy distributions are of Maxwellian shape yielding a temperature of 5 MeV for the heavy reaction products, but only of about 3 MeV for the primary IMFs. Thus IMFs seem to be emitted towards the end of the evaporation chain. The relative-velocity correlations between two IMFs (Li, Be, B, C) display longer emission times when one of the IMFs is a lighter one (Li, Be), compatible with the picture that the latter are more likely to result from a multi-step decay.