Balancing nuclear matter between liquid and gas

By simulating the explosion of hot drops of classical particles, phase separation scenarios and the hypotheses of critical phenomena are tested microscopically. Power law behavior is indeed observed in the mass distribution for excitations corresponding to maximum fragment formation, but the behavior is not the result of critical phenomenon. Rather, it occurs when the initial excitation is chosen to expand the drop just far enough such that it neither collapses back into a liquid drop or explodes into a gas, with the expansion stalling at low density and temperature. Fragment formation is shown to occur when the matter is deep within the hydrodynamically unstable region.