Isospin and symmetry energy effects on nuclear fragment production in liquid-gas-type phase transition region

We have shown that the isospin of nuclei influences the fragment production during the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition. Calculations for Au197, Sn124, La124 and Kr78 at various excitation energies were carried out on the basis of the statistical multifragmentation model (SMM). We analyzed the behavior of the critical exponent τ with the excitation energy and its dependence on the critical temperature. Relative yields of fragments were classified with respect to the mass number of the fragments in the transition region. In this way, we have shown that nuclear multifragmentation exhibits a "bimodality" behavior. We have also shown that the symmetry energy has a small influence on fragment mass distribution; however, its effect is more pronounced in the isotope distributions of produced fragments. © Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2005.