System Size Effect on the Critical Behavior in Nuclear Multifragmentation

Attempt has been made to examine the role of system size on the traditional signatures of critical behavior from a comparative study of Mg-Em at 4.5 A GeV and Kr-Em at 0.95 A GeV interactions. A number of relevant observables such as fluctuation in the sizes of the largest cluster, reduced variance and the mean value of second moment of charge distribution were estimated with the experimental data. From a comparison of our results with that of EOS collaboration for Au, La and Kr on carbon at 1 A GeV, a definite systematic variation in the heights and positions of the peaks could be observed with the change of fragmenting nuclei thereby confirming the effect of system size on MF mechanism. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.