Access to particle-particle emitting sources at intermediate energies

The study of nuclear matter under extreme conditions is a very active area in nuclear physics. This study may improve our understanding of the equation of states and liquid-gas phase transitions in nuclear matter as well as the spectroscopic and dynamic characterization of exotic nuclear systems and reactions. A clear characterization of nuclear interacting systems requires probing the spacetime properties of various particle-emitting sources and the knowledge of the reaction mechanism. Particle-particle correlations represent a very powerful technique to study emitting sources produced during a reaction. In this work two-proton correlation functions measured in Xe+Au at E = 50MeV/nucleon have been studied. By using angle-averaged two-proton correlation functions and imaging techniques we have estimated some of the basic proprieties, such as the size and the relative contributions provided by two-particle–emitting sources produced in semi-central collisions and characterized by different emission time-scales.