Factors contributing to the nuclear caloric curve aspect

After the first experimental evaluation of the nuclear caloric curve a large amount of theoretical work was concentrated to reproduce the transition-like plateau of the caloric curve from 5 MeV temperature. Both dynamical and statistical models have been employed in order to deduce the excitation energy dependence of the temperature of the equilibrated nuclear systems formed in violent heavy ion collisions. For describing such kind of systems a microcanonical model fully obeying the involved physical constrains seems to be the most appropriate option. However, the currently used statistical multifragmentation models (SMM and MMMC ) are not fully satisfying the microcanonical rules. For these reasons the nuclear caloric curve is studied in the present work from the point of view of a sharp microcanonical model. In this respect a detailed analysis concerning the contribution of the various energetic degrees of freedom (binding, Coulomb repulsive and internal excitation) to the curve aspect is performed. The method adopted here consists in suppressing each of the above-mentioned degrees of freedom once at a time keeping the rest of the system parameters unchanged. The Coulomb repulsive (V) and excitation (ε) degrees of freedom are suppressed by fixing the respective energies to zero. The binding degree of freedom (B) is 'suppressed' by fixing it to the constant value of - 8.5 MeV/nucleon for all fragments. The effect of the correlation between the Coulomb repulsive and the excitation degrees of freedom on the caloric curve aspect is also studied. The resulting caloric curves are denoted T-V, T-ε, T-B, T-Vε. One may observe that the suppression of the excitation degree of freedom has the effect of lifting and diminishing the plateau and the suppression of the Coulomb degree of freedom is lowering the plateau and almost washes-out the plateau-like region. The spectacular effect concerns the complementary moves T-Vε and - B: While the Vε couple suppression leads to the absence of any transition-like region, the 'suppression' of the binding degree of freedom results in the manifestation of a short and prompt back-banding just at the beginning of the caloric curve. (authors)