Flow and multifragmentation of Mg-24+Al-27 at intermediate energies

An elaborated investigation was done into the reaction mechanism of heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies of small nuclear systems. Experimental data measured with the Huygens detectors and isospin quantum molecular dynamics (IQMD) simulations of Mg-24+Al-27 at 45 and 95A MeV were analyzed with respect to the impact-parameter selection, the in-plane flow and the IMF production at midrapidity. It was found that only the midcentral impact-parameter class could be identified effectively. The event-plane reconstruction and flow measurements were studied with IQMD and a GEANT detector simulation. This showed that the azimuthal-correlation method gives the best reconstruction. The experimentally measured in-plane flow was consistent with the balancing energy derived from literature of 114+/- 10A MeV. The azimuthal correlations and polar-angle distributions of IMF's emitted at midrapidity were used to distinguish between a dynamic scenario, i.e., IQMD, and a statistical scenario described by a simple decaying-source model. The IQMD simulations were in good agreement with the experimental data while a single decaying-source simulation fails to describe the data which shows that multifragmentation in these small systems is consistent with a dynamic process.