Timescale of particle emission using nuclear interferometry

A review of meson and baryon correlations at various energies is presented. An attempt, to focus on possible lifetime effects contained in existing data,is made. Data at 94 and 44 MeV/u, where experimental conditions are chosen, trying to study the lifetime of light particle emission using two particle correlations, are discussed. The temperature of a thermalized system is obtained, using the relative population of cluster excited states. It is shown that either quantum statistical fluctuations or Coulomb interactions play an important role in the trends of the correlation-functions at very low relative momenta. In the case of 160 and Ar induced reactions on heavy targets, a lifetime of the order of 10-21 seconds is estimated. Temperature measurements for Ar + Ag system show that part of the excitation energy is not converted into thermal energy