Bimodalities : a survey of experimental data and models

Abstract

Bimodal distributions of some chosen variables measured in nuclear collisions were recently proposed as a non ambiguous signature of a first order phase transition in nuclei. This section presents a compilation of both theoretical and experimental studies on bimodalities performed so far, in relation with the liquid-gas phase transition in nuclear matter.Comment: 12 pages, 18 figures, 1 table Appeared in European Physics Journal A as part of the Topical Volume "Dynamics and Thermodynamics with Nuclear Degrees of Freedom