The nuclear liquid-gas phase transition within Fermionic Molecular Dynamics

The time evolution of excited nuclei, which are in equilibrium with the surrounding vapour, is investigated. It is shown that the finite nuclear systems undergo a first oder phase transition. The caloric curve is presented for excited Oxygen, Magnesium, Aluminum and Calcium and the critical temperature is estimated for Oxygen.Comment: 8 pages, 3 postscript figures, uses 'epsfig.sty'. Submitted to Phys. Lett. B. More information available at http://www.gsi.de/~schnack/fmd.htm

Fermionic Molecular Dynamics

A quantum molecular model for fermions is investigated which works with antisymmetrized many-body states composed of localized single-particle wave packets. The application to the description of atomic nuclei and collisions between them shows that the model is capable to address a rich variety of observed phenomena. Among them are shell effects, cluster structure and intrinsic deformation in ground states of nuclei as well as fusion, incomplete fusion, dissipative binary collisions and multifragmentation in reactions depending on impact parameter and beam energy. Thermodynamic properties studied with long time simulations proof that the model obeys Fermi-Dirac statistics and time averaging is equivalent to ensemble averaging. A first order liquid-gas phase transition is observed at a boiling temperature of $T \approx 5 MeV$ for finite nuclei of mass $16...40$.Comment: 61 pages, several postscript figures, uses 'epsfig.sty'. Report to be published in Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 39. More information available at http://www.gsi.de/~schnack/fmd.htm

Multifragmentation calculated with relativistic force

A saturating hamiltonian is presented in a relativistically covariant formalism. The interaction is described by scalar and vector mesons, with coupling strengths adjusted to the nuclear matter. No explicit density depe ndence is assumed. The hamiltonian is applied in a QMD calculation to determine the fragment distribution in O + Br collision at different energies (50 -- 200 MeV/u) to test the applicability of the model at low energies. The results are compared with experiment and with previous non-relativistic calculations. PACS: 25.70Mn, 25.75.+rComment: 23 pages, latex, with 10 PS figures, available at http://www.gsi.de/~papp

The Effect of Porosity on X-ray Emission Line Profiles from Hot-Star Winds

We investigate the degree to which the nearly symmetric form of X-ray emission lines seen in Chandra spectra of early-type supergiant stars could be explained by a possibly porous nature of their spatially structured stellar winds. Such porosity could effectively reduce the bound-free absorption of X-rays emitted by embedded wind shocks, and thus allow a more similar transmission of red- vs. blue-shifted emission from the back vs. front hemispheres. For a medium consisting of clumps of size l and volume filling factor f, in which the `porosity length' h=l/f increases with local radius as h = h' r, we find that a substantial reduction in wind absorption requires a quite large porosity scale factor h' > 1, implying large porosity lengths h > r. The associated wind structure must thus have either a relatively large scale l~ r, or a small volume filling factor f ~ l/r << 1, or some combination of these. The relatively small-scale, moderate compressions generated by intrinsic instabilities in line-driving seem unlikely to give such large porosity lengths, leaving again the prospect of instead having to invoke a substantial (ca. factor 5) downward revision in assumed mass-loss rates.Comment: 6 pages in apj-emulate; 3 figures; submitted to Ap

An Extensive Collection of Stellar Wind X-ray Source Region Emission Line Parameters,Temperatures, Velocities, and Their Radial Distributions as Obtained from Chandra Observations of 17 OB Stars

Chandra high energy resolution observations have now been obtained from numerous non-peculiar O and early B stars. The observed X-ray emission line properties differ from pre-launch predictions, and the interpretations are still problematic. We present a straightforward analysis of a broad collection of OB stellar line profile data to search for morphological trends. X-ray line emission parameters and the spatial distributions of derived quantities are examined with respect to luminosity class. The X-ray source locations and their corresponding temperatures are extracted by using the He-like f/i line ratios and the H-like to He-like line ratios respectively. Our luminosity class study reveals line widths increasing with luminosity. Although the majority of the OB emission lines are found to be symmetric, with little central line displacement, there is evidence for small, but finite, blue-ward line-shifts that also increase with luminosity. The spatial X-ray temperature distributions indicate that the highest temperatures occur near the star and steadily decrease outward. This trend is most pronounced in the OB supergiants. For the lower density wind stars, both high and low X-ray source temperatures exist near the star. However, we find no evidence of any high temperature X-ray emission in the outer wind regions for any OB star. Since the temperature distributions are counter to basic shock model predictions, we call this the "near-star high-ion problem" for OB stars. By invoking the traditional OB stellar mass loss rates, we find a good correlation between the fir-inferred radii and their associated X-ray continuum optical depth unity radii. We conclude by presenting some possible explanations to the X-ray source problems that have been revealed by this study.Comment: Published in 2007, ApJ, 668, 456. An Erratum scheduled for publication in 2008, ApJ, 680, is included as an Appendix. The Erratum corrects some tabulated data in 5 tables and 2 figure

Au+Au central collisions at 150, 250 and 400 AMeV energies in QMD with relativistic forces

An extensive comparison of the recent experimental data published by the FOPI collaboration at GSI with the results of a relativistically covariant formulation of a QMD code is presented. For most of the quantities we find agreement with the experimental results showing that the derived force has a reasonable momentum dependence.Comment: 33 pages with 18 EPSF figures included. Final version to appear in Nucl. Phys.