Competition of coalescence and "fireball" processes in nonequilibrium emission of light charged particles from p+Au collisions

TL;DR

This study investigates the production mechanisms of light charged particles in proton-gold collisions at 1.2 and 1.9 GeV, highlighting the significant roles of nonequilibrium processes like coalescence and 'fireball' emission in particle yields.

Contribution

It introduces a combined phenomenological and microscopic model approach, emphasizing the importance of nonequilibrium processes in particle emission from p+Au collisions.

Findings

Nonequilibrium processes account for 40-80% of total cross sections.

The 'fireball' emission mechanism significantly improves data description.

The ratio of nonequilibrium to equilibrium processes remains stable across energies.

Abstract

The energy and angular dependence of double differential cross sections was measured for p,d,t,He,Li,Be, and B isotopes produced in collisions of 1.2 and 1.9 GeV protons with Au target. The shape of the spectra and angular distributions almost does not change in the beam energy range from 1.2 to 2.5 GeV, however, the absolute value of the cross sections increases for all ejectiles. A phenomenological model of two emitting, moving sources reproduces very well spectra and angular distributions of intermediate mass fragments. Double differential cross sections for light charged particles (LCP) were analyzed in the frame of the microscopic model of intranuclear cascade (INC) with coalescence of nucleons and statistical model for evaporation of particles from excited residual nuclei. Energy and angular dependencies of data agree satisfactorily neither with predictions of microscopic intranuclear cascade calculations for protons, nor with coalescence calculations for other LCP. Phenomenological inclusion of another reaction mechanism - emission of LCP from a "fireball", i.e., fast and hot moving source - combined with the microscopic model calculations of INC, coalescence and evaporation of particles leads to very good description of the data. It was found that nonequilibrium processes are very important for production of LCP. They exhaust 40-80% of the total cross sections - depending on the emitted particles. Coalescence and "fireball" emission give comparable contributions to the cross sections with exception of 3He data where coalescence clearly dominates. The ratio of sum of all nonequilibrium processes to those proceeding through stage of statistical equilibrium does almost not change in the beam energy range from 1.2 GeV to 2.5 GeV for all light charged particles.