Many observables have been developed to study the effects of the two component
nature of nuclei. This dissertation has experimentally probed caloric curves as well
as scaling observables for their dependence on the asymmetric portion of the nuclear
equation of state. Projectile fragmentation sources were identified from the reactions
of 86,78Kr+64,58Ni at 35 MeV/A taken on the NIMROD-ISiS array. The angular
coverage, excellent isotopic resolution, and Neutron Ball allow for quasi-complete
event reconstruction in both charge and mass.
A new thermometer for nuclear fragmentation studies has been derived and is
presented here. In this thermometer, the temperature is obtained from fluctuations of
the transverse momentum. The proton transverse momentum fluctuations are used
in this thesis to study the N/Z dependence of the nuclear caloric curve. The caloric
curve constructed from proton momentum fluctuations does not show a significant
dependence on the source N/Z ratio. Two other thermometers have also been studied
in this thesis: the double isotope ratio, and moving source slope thermometers. These
thermometers show no statistically significant dependence on the source N/Z.
The source density has been derived from the evolution of fragment Coulomb
barriers with increasing E*/A. This density showed no source N/Z dependence. However,
a strong evolution in source density over the E*/A=1.5-7.5 MeV region was
observed.
Fragment scaling was investigated through isoscaling and power law scaling. The power law scaling showed a strong dependence on the source N/Z. This source N/Z
dependence was further investigated through isoscaling. The fragment yields of this
data have been shown to exhibit consistent isoscaling for Z=1-17. In addition, isoscaling
was observed in data cut on the E*/A of the source yielding decreasing slopes (a)
as a function of E*/A. This decrease, normalized to the asymmetries of the sources
(a/delta), has been linked to a decrease in the asymmetry coefficient Csym.
This dissertation has shown that the experimentally observed decrease in Csym
with E*/A is well correlated to the temperature and density changes experimentally
observed in this data
