Signals of bimodality in the fragmentation of Au quasi-projectiles Original Research Article

Signals of bimodality have been investigated in experimental data of quasi-projectile decay produced in Au+Au collisions at View the MathML source. This same data set was already shown to provide several signals characteristic of a first order, liquid–gas-like phase transition. Different event sortings proposed in the recent literature are analyzed. A sudden change in the fragmentation pattern is revealed by the distribution of the charge of the largest fragment, compatible with a bimodal behavior.