Evidence for Statistical Equilibrium of the Fragment Isobaric Distributions in Strongly Damped Collisions ofKr86withEr166

Abstract

Primary (pre-evaporation) fragment mass distributions and fragment charge distributions have been measured for deep inelastic collisions of ${}_{}{}^{86}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Kr}$ with ${}_{}{}^{166}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Er}$ at $E_{\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{}}\sim 400$ MeV. It is shown that the relations between the lower moments of the above fragment distributions are consistent with the formation of a statistically equilibrated intermediate dinuclear complex over a wide range of kinetic-energy damping.