Caloric curve in Au + Au collisions

Realistic caloric curves are obtained for 197Au +197 Au reaction with incident energy ranging from 35 to 130 MeV/nucleon in the dynamic statistical multifragmentation model. It is shown that for excitation energy 3 to 8 MeV/nucleon, the temperature remains constant in the range 5 to 6 MeV, which is close to experiment. The mechanism of energy deposition through the tripartition of the colliding system envisaged in this model together with inter-fragment nuclear interaction are found to play important role. A possible signature of liquid-gas phase transition is seen in the specific heat distribution calculated from these caloric curves, and the critical temperature is found to be ∼ 6 to 6.5 MeV. PACS numbers : 25.70.-z,25.70.Pq Typeset using REVTEX