ABSTRACT
In the last chapter we described the various decay modes experienced by hot nuclei produced in dissipative reactions, which emphasizes the key role played by the deposited excitation energy per nucleon . The rise ( 3 MeV/u) and fall ( close to the nuclear binding energy) of fragment production has been pointed out. Fragmentation thus appears as an intermediate mechanism bridging the lowenergy decay modes dominated by evaporation (and fission, for heavy systems) and the high-energy decay modes characterized by the complete vaporization of the system. The main physical issues related to nuclear fragmentation are associated with the properties of the nuclear equation of state (EOS) at finite temperature T and low-density . In particular, the possibility of observing a liquid-gas phase transition has triggered numerous experimental and theoretical investigations justifying a whole chapter on this subject.
