Experimental determination of the quasi-projectile mass with measured neutrons

TL;DR

This paper evaluates methods for accurately reconstructing the quasi-projectile mass using measured neutrons, demonstrating model-independent efficiencies and validating neutron assignment techniques for studying multifragmentation reactions.

Contribution

It introduces a validated, model-independent approach for assigning neutrons to the quasi-projectile, improving the accuracy of source reconstruction in nuclear multifragmentation experiments.

Findings

Detection efficiencies are model independent.

Two methods for neutron assignment are equivalent.

The neutron multiplicity determination is sufficiently accurate.

Abstract

The investigation of the isospin dependence of multifragmentation reactions relies on precise reconstruction of the fragmenting source. The criteria used to assign free emitted neutrons, detected with the TAMU Neutron Ball, to the quasi-projectile source are investigated in the framework of two different simulation codes. Overall and source-specific detection efficiencies for multifragmentation events are found to be model independent. The equivalence of the two different methods used to assign experimentally detected charged particles and neutrons to the emitting source is shown. The method used experimentally to determine quasi-projectile emitted free neutron multiplicity is found to be reasonably accurate and sufficiently precise as to allow for the study of well-defined quasi-projectile sources.