Charged particle calorimetry of 40Ar + 27Al reactions from 36 to 65 MeV/u

Temperatures and excitation energies have been independently measured for hot nuclei formed in the Ar on Al reactions from 36 to 65 MeV/u. Charged products have been measured in a geometry close to 4 π in the center of mass with multidetectors MUR and TONNEAU. The events have been sorted as a function of the impact parameter value. The products emitted from the equilibrated incomplete fusion nuclei are separated from the nucleons and clusters emitted in the first step of the collision (pre-equilibrium) and from the target-like nuclei. The qualitative variation of temperature and excitation energy values have been deduced from the charge distribution of residual nuclei and the transverse energy. Quantitative values are obtained from the kinetic energy distributions of particles in the frame of the reconstructed equilibrated nucleus. At each incident energy, the temperature and excitation energy are both increasing when the impact parameter value decreases. For central collisions (b<2fm), the temperature increases with the incident energy, slowly above 45 MeV/u, and reaches a value of 7 MeV. The excitation energy per nucleon increases similarly. The correlation between the excitation energy per nucleon and the temperature shows an evolution of the level density parameter value