Intermediate mass fragments emitted in the reaction Ag+14N at 100, 160 and 250 MeV bombarding energy

The fragments produced in the reaction between a 14N beam of various energies and a natural Ag target have been studied. The atomic numbers of the fragments have been identified up to Z=17 by means of a E-ΔE counter telescope. The cross sections, the kinetic energy distributions as well as the angular distributions have been measured for each atomic number. The kinetic energy distributions show two components: a high-energy component (quasielastic), prevailing at angles close to the grazing angles and for atomic numbers close to Z=7, and a low-energy component (relaxed), at energies close to the Coulomb repulsion energy, present at all angles and for all the Z. A detailed study of the relaxed components of the kinetic energy seems to account for both the means and the widths of these distributions on a purely statistical basis. The cross sections of the relaxed components appear to be quite large at low Z and to decrease rapidly to a fairly constant value in the region of 10<=Z<=17. A marked even-odd alternation in the cross sections is observed. The angular distributions are strongly forward peaked for Z<7. For Z>7 the forward peaking decreases rapidly until, for Z>13, the limiting form 1/sin(theta) is attained. Evidence for the existence of a diffusion process along the mass asymmetry coordinate is discussed. (Auth.)