Dynamical studies of nuclear multifragmentation

We review some dynamical approaches developed by our group to study multifragmentation of nuclei. We first investigate the problem of disassembly of hot and compressed nuclei. We show that multifragmentation occurs at low density as a consequence of the fluctuations of the mean field. The magnitude of the fluctuations is evaluated using percolation methods (lattice percolation or restructured aggregation). The dynamical expansion of the nucleus is studied either using a self consistent Thomas Fermi approach or a simple extended liquid drop. Finally, introducing a preequilibrium model to describe the first phase of the collision between two heavy ions, we use the preceding investigations to calculate multifragmentation excitation functions