Critical Exponents from the Multifragmentation of 1A Gev Au Nuclei

The breakup of 1A GeV gold nuclei incident on carbon has been studied with a detector system that permitted exclusive event reconstruction of nearly all charged reaction products. The moments of the resulting charged fragment distribution and fluctuations therein provide strong evidence that nuclear matter possesses a critical point observable in finite nuclei. Values of the critical exponents γ, β, and τ have been determined. These values are close to those for liquid-gas systems but differ significantly from those for other 3-dimensional systems. Assumptions in our analysis have been examined and confirmed by dynamical information.