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Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 022701 (2001) [4 pages]

Event-by-Event Analysis of Proton-Induced Nuclear Multifragmentation: Determination of the Phase Transition Universality Class in a System with Extreme Finite-Size Constraints

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M. Kleine Berkenbusch, W. Bauer *, K. Dillman, and S. Pratt
National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1116

L. Beaulieu †, K. Kwiatkowski ‡, T. Lefort §, W.-c. Hsi **, and V. E. Viola
Department of Chemistry and IUCF, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405

S. J. Yennello
Department of Chemistry and Cyclotron Laboratory, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843

R. G. Korteling
Department of Chemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V4A 1S6

H. Breuer
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742

Received 5 July 2001; published 26 December 2001

A percolation model of nuclear fragmentation is used to interpret 10.2 GeV/c p+197Au multifragmentation data. Emphasis is put on finding signatures of a continuous nuclear matter phase transition in finite nuclear systems. Based on model calculations, corrections accounting for physical constraints of the fragment detection and sequential decay processes are derived. Strong circumstantial evidence for a continuous phase transition is found, and the values of two critical exponents, σ  =  0.5±0.1 and τ  =  2.35±0.05, are extracted from the data. A critical temperature of Tc  =  8.3±0.2 MeV is found.


©2002 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.022701
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.022701
PACS: 25.70.Pq, 05.70.Fh, 21.65.+f, 25.40.Ve

* Corresponding author.Email address: bauer@pa.msu.edu
† Current address: Département de physique, génie physique et optique, Unversité Laval, Ste-Foy, Québec, Canada G1K 7P4.
‡ Current address: Physics Division P-23, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545.
§ Current address: LPC de Caen, 14050 Caen cedex, France.
** Current address: Rush Presbyterian, St. Luke Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612.

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