Isotopic trends in nuclear multifragmentation

摘要

An overview of the recent progress that has been made in studies of nuclear multifragmentation is presented. Special emphasis is put on an exploration of the isotopic trends in nuclear multi fragmentation and the possibility of extracting physical information related to the nuclear equation of state. Relevant experimental methods of isotope identification are described. The isotopic composition of fragments is used to extract the values of thermodynamical observables, such as temperature and chemical potentials, for a system undergoing multifragmentation. Various methods for the extraction of thermodynamical variables are analyzed. An overview of isotope-thermometry methods, which explore the sensitivity of various yield ratios to temperature, is presented. An exponential scaling of the relative isotopic yields from reactions with different neutron contents, called isoscaling, is used to explore the evolution of the system's isospin degrees of freedom. Finally, the nuclear equation of state and the isospin-asymmetric liquid-gas phase transition in nuclear matter are discussed.