Angular correlations near the Fermi energy

Abstract

Angular correlations between light particles have been studied to probe the extent to which a thermally equilibrated system is formed in heavy ion collisions near the Fermi energy. Single-light-particle inclusive energy spectra and two-particle large-angle correlations were measured for 40 and 50 MeV/nucleon C+C, Ag, and Au. The single-particle inclusive energy spectra are well fit by a three moving source parametrization. Two-particle large-angle correlations are shown to be consistent with emission from a thermally equilibrated source when the effects of momentum conservation are considered. Single-particle inclusive spectra and light-particle correlations at small relative momentum were measured for 35 MeV/nucleon N+Ag. Source radii were extracted from the two-particle correlation functions and were found to be consistent with previous measurements using two-particle correlations and the coalescence model. The temperature of the emitting source was extracted from the relative populations of states using the quantum statistical model and was found to be ${4.8}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}2.4}^{+2.8}$ MeV, compared to the 14 MeV temperature extracted from the slopes of the kinetic energy spectra.