Nuclear liquid-gas phase transition studied with antisymmetrized molecular dynamics

Existence of nuclear liquid-gas phase transition in ideal thermal equilibrium is investigated by using antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD). Microcanonical ensembles are obtained by solving time evolution of a many-nucleon system confined in a container for a long time. The temperature and the pressure are extracted from these ensembles and the caloric curves are constructed. A clear signal of the liquid-gas phase transition is seen in the obtained constant pressure caloric curves, that is, plateau or backbending (negative heat capacity) which is expected for the phase transition in finite systems. (author)