VARIATION OF THE COULOMB REPULSION IN MULTIFRAGMENTATION

In multifragment emission, the measured Coulomb repulsion provides evidence for the initial geometry and the time evolution of the break-up process. In collisions of light relativistic projectiles with gold, it is found that for a given isotope the maxima of the energy spectra decrease with increasing number of emitted fragments. This could indicate a variation in density at break-up. Different explanations of this observation are