Heated nuclear matter, condensation phenomena and the hadronic equation of state

The thermodynamic properties of heated nuclear matter are explored using an exactly solvable canonical ensemble model. This model reduces to the results of an ideal Fermi gas at low temperatures. At higher temperatures, the fragmentation of the nuclear matter into clusters of nucleons leads to features that resemble a Bose gas. Some parallels of this model with the phenomena of Bose condensation and with percolation phenomena are discussed. A simple expression for the hadronic equation of state is obtained from the model.Comment: 12 pages, revtex, 1 ps file appended (figure 1

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the international space station: Part I - results from the test flight on the space shuttle

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) was flown on the space shuttle Discovery during flight STS-91 (June 1998) in a 51.7° orbit at altitudes between 320 and.A search for antihelium nuclei in the rigidity range 1–was performed. No antihelium nuclei were detected at any rigidity. An upper limit on the flux ratio of antihelium to helium of <1.1×10−6 was obtained.The high energy proton, electron, positron, helium, antiproton and deuterium spectra were accurately measured.For each particle and nuclei two distinct spectra were observed: a higher energy spectrum and a substantial second spectrum. Positrons in the second spectrum were found to be much more abundant than electrons. Tracing particles from the second spectra shows that most of them travel for an extended period of time in the geomagnetic field, and that the positive particles (p and e+) and negative ones (e−) originate from two complementary geographic regions. The second helium spectrum flux over the energy range 0.1–was measured to be . Over 90 percent of the helium flux was determined to be at the 90% confidence level. (Elsevier