# Bimodality - a general feature of heavy ion reactions

Abstract : Recently, is has been observed that events with the {\it same} total transverse energy of light charged particles (LCP) in the quasi target region, $E_{\perp 12}^{QT}$, show two quite distinct reaction scenarios in the projectile domain: multifragmentation and residue production. This phenomenon has been dubbed "bimodality". Using Quantum Molecular Dynamics calculations we demonstrate that this observation is very general. It appears in collisions of all symmetric systems larger than Ca and at beam energies between 50 A.MeV and 600 A.MeV and is due to large fluctuations of the impact parameter for a given $E_{\perp 12}^{QT}$. Investigating in detail the $E_{\perp 12}^{QT}$ bin in which both scenarios are present, we find that neither the average fragment momenta nor the average transverse and longitudinal energies of fragments show the behavior expected from a system in statistical equilibrium, in experiment as well as in QMD simulations. On the contrary, the experimental as well as the theoretical results point towards a fast process. This observation questions the conjecture that the observed bimodality is due to the coexistence of 2 phases at a given temperature in finite systems.
Document type :
Journal articles

http://hal.in2p3.fr/in2p3-00419739
Contributor : Michel Lion <>
Submitted on : Thursday, September 24, 2009 - 7:41:33 PM
Last modification on : Monday, November 23, 2020 - 12:52:03 PM

### Citation

A. Le Fevre, Jörg Aichelin, Christoph Hartnack, J. Lukasik, W. F. J. Mueller, et al.. Bimodality - a general feature of heavy ion reactions. Physical Review C, American Physical Society, 2009, 80, pp.044615. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevC.80.044615⟩. ⟨in2p3-00419739⟩

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