arXiv subjects

A. S. Botvina

Publications and source records attributed to A. S. Botvina.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2008

In-medium properties of nuclear fragments at the liquid-gas phase coexistence

Reactions of nuclear multifragmentation of excited finite nuclei can be interpreted as manifestation of the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition. During this process the matter at subnuclear density clusterizes into hot primary fragments, which are located in the vicinity of other nuclear species. In recent experiments there were found evidences that the symmetry and surface energies of primary fragments change considerably as compared to isolated cold or low-excited nuclei. The new modified properties of primary fragments should be taken into account during their secondary de-excitation.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2008

The role of bulk energy in nuclear multifragmentation

Because of thermal expansion and residual interactions, hot nuclear fragments produced in multifragmentation reactions may have lower nucleon density than the equilibrium density of cold nuclei. In terms of liquid-drop model this effect can be taken into account by reducing the bulk energy of fragments. We study the influence of this change on fragment yields and isotope distributions within the framework of the statistical multifragmentation model. Similarities and differences with previously discussed modifications of symmetry and surface energies of nuclei are analyzed.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2008

Critical temperature for the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition (from multifragmentation and fission)

Critical temperature Tc for the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition is stimated both from the multifragmentation and fission data. In the first case,the critical temperature is obtained by analysis of the IMF yields in p(8.1 GeV)+Au collisions within the statistical model of multifragmentation (SMM). In the second case, the experimental fission probability for excited 188Os is compared with the calculated one with Tc as a free parameter. It is concluded for both cases that the critical temperature is higher than 16 MeV.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2007

N/Z Dependence of Projectile Fragmentation

The N/Z dependence of projectile fragmentation at relativistic energies has been studied in a recent experiment at the GSI laboratory with the ALADiN forward spectrometer coupled to the LAND neutron detector. Besides a primary beam of 124Sn, also secondary beams of 124La and 107Sn delivered by the FRS fragment separator have been used in order to extend the range of isotopic compositions of the produced spectator sources. With the achieved mass resolution of ΔA/A \approx 1.5%, lighter isotopes with atomic numbers Z \le 10 are individually resolved. The presently ongoing analyses of the measured isotope yields focus on isoscaling and its relation to the properties of hot fragments at freeze-out and on the derivation of chemical freeze-out temperatures which are found to be independent of the isotopic composition of the studied systems. The latter result is at variance with the predictions for limiting temperatures as obtained with finite-temperature Hartree-Fock calculations.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2007

Discriminant Analysis and Secondary-Beam Charge Recognition

The discriminant-analysis method has been applied to optimize the exotic-beam charge recognition in a projectile fragmentation experiment. The experiment was carried out at the GSI using the fragment separator (FRS) to produce and select the relativistic secondary beams, and the ALADIN setup to measure their fragmentation products following collisions with Sn target nuclei. The beams of neutron poor isotopes around 124La and 107Sn were selected to study the isospin dependence of the limiting temperature of heavy nuclei by comparing with results for stable 124Sn projectiles. A dedicated detector to measure the projectile charge upstream of the reaction target was not used, and alternative methods had to be developed. The presented method, based on the multivariate discriminant analysis, allowed to increase the efficacy of charge recognition up to about 90%, which was about 20% more than achieved with the simple scalar methods.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2007

Production of hypernuclei in multifragmentation of nuclear spectator matter

In peripheral collisions of relativistic heavy ions highly excited spectators containing Lambda-hyperons can be produced. Such strange spectator matter may undergo a break-up into many fragments (multifragmentation) as it is well established for ordinary nuclear systems. We generalize the statistical multifragmentation model, previously successfully used for the description of experimental data, for the case of hypernuclear systems. We predict relative yields of hypernuclei and the main characteristics of such a break-up. We point at a connection of this phenomenon with a liquid-gas phase transition in hypermatter.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2007

Isotopic Effects in Nuclear Reactions at Relativistic Energies

A systematic study of isotopic effects in the break-up of projectile spectators at relativistic energies has been performed at the GSI laboratory with the ALADiN spectrometer coupled to the LAND neutron detector. Besides a primary beam of 124Sn, also secondary beams of 124La and 107Sn produced at the FRS fragment separator have been used in order to extend the range of isotopic compositions. The gross properties of projectile fragmentation are very similar for all the studied systems but specific isotopic effects have been observed in both neutron and charged particle production. The breakup temperatures obtained from the double ratios of isotopic yields have been extracted and compared with the limiting-temperature expectation.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2006

Properties of stellar matter in supernova explosions and nuclear multifragmentation

During the collapse of massive stars, and the supernova type-II explosions, stellar matter reaches densities and temperatures which are similar to the 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 nuclear composition of stellar matter. The effects on weak processes, and on the nucleosynthesis are also discussed.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2006

Tracing the evolution of the symmetry energy of hot nuclear fragments from the compound nucleus towards multifragmentation

The evolution of the symmetry energy coefficient of the binding energy of hot fragments with increasing excitation is explored in multifragmentation processes following heavy-ion collisions below the Fermi energy. In this work, high-resolution mass spectrometric data on isotopic distributions of projectile-like fragments from collisions of 25 MeV/nucleon 86Kr and 64Ni beams on heavy neutron-rich targets are systematically compared to calculations involving the Statistical Multifragmentation Model. The study reveals a gradual decrease of the symmetry energy coefficient from 25 MeV at the compound nucleus regime (E*/A < 2 MeV) towards 15 MeV in the bulk multifragmentation regime (E*/A > 4 MeV). The ensuing isotopic distributions of the hot fragments are found to be very wide and extend towards the neutron drip-line. These findings may have important implications to the composition and evolution of hot astrophysical environments, such as core-collapse supernova.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2006

Experimental determination of the symmetry energy of a low density nuclear gas

Experimental analyses of moderate temperature nuclear gases produced in the violent collisions of 35 MeV/nucleon$^{64}$Zn projectiles with $^{92}$Mo and $^{197}$Au target nuclei reveal a large degree of alpha particle clustering at low densities. For these gases, temperature and density dependent symmetry energy coefficients have been derived from isoscaling analyses of the yields of nuclei with A $\leq 4$. At densities of 0.01 to 0.05 times the ground state density of symmetric nuclear matter, the temperature and density dependent symmetry energies are 10.7 to 13.5 MeV. These values are much larger than those obtained in mean field calculations. They are in quite good agreement with results of a recently proposed Virial Equation of State calculation.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2006

Modification of surface energy in nuclear multifragmentation

Within the statistical multifragmentation model we study modifications of the surface and symmetry energy of primary fragments in the freeze-out volume. The ALADIN experimental data on multifragmentation obtained in reactions induced by high-energy projectiles with different neutron richness are analyzed. We have extracted the isospin dependence of the surface energy coefficient at different degrees of fragmentation. We conclude that the surface energy of hot fragments produced in multifragmentation reactions differs from the values extracted for isolated nuclei at low excitation. At high fragment multiplicity, it becomes nearly independent of the neutron content of the fragments.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2006

Isoscaling and the symmetry energy in spectator fragmentation

Isoscaling and its relation to the symmetry energy in the fragmentation of excited residues produced at relativistic energies were studied in two experiments conducted at the GSI laboratory. The INDRA multidetector has been used to detect and identify light particles and fragments with Z <= 5 in collisions of 12C on 112,124Sn at incident energies of 300 and 600 MeV per nucleon. Isoscaling is observed, and the deduced parameters decrease with increasing centrality. Symmetry term coefficients, deduced within the statistical description of isotopic scaling, are near gamma = 25 MeV for peripheral and gamma < 15 MeV for central collisions. In a very recent experiment with the ALADIN spectrometer, the possibility of using secondary beams for reaction studies at relativistic energies has been explored. Beams of 107Sn, 124Sn, 124La, and 197Au were used to investigate the mass and isospin dependence of projectile fragmentation at 600 MeV per nucleon. The decrease of the isoscaling parameters is confirmed and extended over the full fragmentation regime covered in these reactions.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2006

Reply to ``Comment on `Symmetry energy and the isospin dependent equation of state' "

We show that the large sequential decay corrections obtained by Ono {\it et al} [nucl-ex/0507018], is in contradiction with both the other dynamical and statistical model calculations carried out for the same systems and energy. On the other hand, the conclusion of Shetty {\it {et al.}} $[$Phys. Rev. C 70, 011601R (2004)$]$, that the experimental data favors Gogny$-$AS interaction (obtained assuming a significantly smaller sequential decay effects), is consistent with several other independent studies.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2006

Time scale of the thermal multifragmentation in p(3.6 GeV) + Au collisions

The relative angle correlation of intermediate mass fragments has been studied for p+Au collisions at 3.6 GeV. Strong suppression at small angles is observed caused by IMF-IMF Coulomb repulsion. Experimental correlation function is compared to that obtained by the multi-body Coulomb trajectory calculations with the various decay time of fragmenting system. The combined model including the empirically modified intranuclear cascade followed by statistical multifragmentation was used to generate starting conditions for these calculations. The model dependence of the results obtained has been carefully checked. The mean decay time of fragmenting system is found to be 85 +- 50 fm/c.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2005

Symmetry energy and the isoscaling properties of the fragments produced in $^{40}$Ar, $^{40}$Ca + $^{58}$Fe, $^{58}$Ni reactions at 25 $-$ 53 MeV/nucleon

The symmetry energy and the isoscaling properties of the fragments produced in the multifragmentation of $^{40}$Ar, $^{40}$Ca + $^{58}$Fe, $^{58}$Ni reactions at 25 - 53 MeV/nucleon were investigated within the framework of statistical multifragmentation model. The isoscaling parameters $α$, from the primary (hot) and secondary (cold) fragment yield distributions, were studied as a function of excitation energy, isospin (neutron-to-proton asymmetry) and fragment symmetry energy. It is observed that the isoscaling parameter $α$ decreases with increasing excitation energy and decreasing symmetry energy. The parameter $α$ is also observed to increase with increasing difference in the isospin of the fragmenting system. The sequential decay of the primary fragments into secondary fragments, when studied as a function of excitation energy and isospin of the fragmenting system, show very little influence on the isoscaling parameter. The symmetry energy however, has a strong influence on the isospin properties of the hot fragments. The experimentally observed scaling parameters can be explained by symmetry energy that is significantly lower than that for the ground state nuclei near saturation density. The results indicate that the properties of hot nuclei at excitation energies, densities and isospin away from the normal ground state nuclei could be significantly different.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2005

Statistical description of nuclear break-up

We present an overview of concepts and results obtained with statistical models in study of nuclear multifragmentation. Conceptual differences between statistical and dynamical approaches, and selection of experimental observables for identification of these processes, are outlined. New and perspective developments, like inclusion of in-medium modifications of the properties of hot primary fragments, are discussed. We list important applications of statistical multifragmentation in other fields of research.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2005

Multifragmentation reactions and properties of hot stellar matter at subnuclear densities

We point out similarity of thermodynamic conditions reached in intermediate energy nuclear collisions and in supernova explosions. We show that a statistical approach, which has been previously applied for nuclear multifragmentation reactions, can be very useful for description of electro-neutral stellar matter. Then properties of hot unstable nuclei extracted from analysis of multifragmentation data can be used for construction of a realistic equation of state of supernova matter.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2005

Isospin and symmetry energy effects on nuclear fragment production in liquid-gas type phase transition region

We have demonstrated that the isospin of nuclei influences the fragment production during the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition. Calculations for Au197, Sn124, La124 and Kr78 at various excitation energies were carried out on the basis of the statistical multifragmentation model (SMM). We analyzed the behavior of the critical exponent tau with the excitation energy and its dependence on the critical temperature. Relative yields of fragments were classified with respect to the mass number of the fragments in the transition region. In this way, we have demonstrated that nuclear multifragmentation exhibits a 'bimodality' behavior. We have also shown that the symmetry energy has a small influence on fragment mass distribution, however, its effect is more pronounced in the isotope distributions of produced fragments.

nucl-th↗