Statistical aspects of highly excited and non-equilibrium nuclear systems

One and two light particle inclusive measurements can provide information about the nonequilibrium initial stages of heavy ion induced reactions at intermediate energies. Correlation functions between coincident light particles become more pronounced with increasing kinetic energy of the detected particles indicating emission from a region of the combined system which is more localized in space time. The relative populations of particle unbound states of emitted fragments are consistent with temperatures of about 5 MeV. Low temperatures derived from the measurement of low energy γ transitions occur as a result of sequential decay processes which render these measurements insensitive to the temperatures of highly excited systems