Nuclear Multifragmentation, Percolation, and the Fisher Droplet Model: Common Features of Reducibility and Thermal Scaling

Abstract

It is shown that the Fisher droplet model, percolation, and nuclear multifragmentation share the common features of reducibility (stochasticity in multiplicity distributions) and thermal scaling (one-fragment production probabilities are Boltzmann factors). Barriers obtained, for cluster production on percolation lattices, from the Boltzmann factors show a power-law dependence on cluster size with an exponent of 0.42+/-0.02. The EOS Collaboration Au multifragmentation data yield barriers with a power-law exponent of 0.68+/-0.03. Values of the surface energy coefficient of a low density nuclear system are also extracted.