New measurements of the properties of neutron-rich projectile fragments

Two new experiments were carried out at the NSCL to explore the details of the linear moment and excitation energy distributions of projectile fragmentation production. In the first experiment the full linear momentum distributions of fragments from the reaction of a ⁷⁶ Ge beam with beryllium and gold targets were measured in the S800 spectrometer. The results indicate a strong contribution of "far side" or attractive scattering to the near-projectile products with the gold target. In the second experiment the excitation energy of primary projectile fragments from peripheral nuclear reactions at intermediate energies was carried out at the NSCL. Sodium, neon and fluorine isotopes produced by the fragmentation of a neutron-rich ³²Mg beam by a beryllium target were observed in a magnetic spectrometer in coincidence with fast neutrons detected using the Modular Neutron Array (MoNA). A new technique based on an analysis of the observed neutron multiplicity distributions was used to estimate the excitation energy and mass of the precursor intermediate products for the first time. A strong correlation between the neutron multiplicity and the total mass loss was observed indicating that large excitation energies were created in the prefragments by the initial collision. These findings are generally consistent with the internuclear cascade model of the collision dynamics but not with macroscopic abrasion-ablation models.