On a possibility to distinguish between sequential and prompt multifragmentation in experiments

¹ V. G. Khlopin Radium Institute - Roentgen Str. 1, SU-197022 St. Petersburg, Russia
² Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - Livermore, CA 94550, USA
³ Hahn-Meitner Institute, Bereich Physik - D-1000 Berlin, Germany
⁴ Department of Physics, Lund University - Sölvegatan 14, S-22362 Lund, Sweden

Received: 21 August 1995
Accepted: 21 March 1996

Abstract

Predictions on ratios between the yield of light isotopes (Li, Be, B and C) from and nuclei from a microcanonical multifragmentation model and a sequential evaporation model are compared at excitation 175–800 MeV. Secondary decay does not affect these ratios significantly, which make them useful to estimate the excitation energy at the instant of fragmentation. The excitation energy dependence agrees well except for a local minimum near the onset of multifragmentation predicted only by the microcanonical model due to coupling between exit channels. This offers a way to distinguish between the models by measuring the relative yields of fragments from target residues differing significantly only in their neutron numbers.