Heating nuclei with light ions at GeV incident energies

Hot nuclei are studied, where through an appropriate choice of incident channel and event selection, dynamical effects are attenuated and multifragmentation is limited. Three preparatory results are discussed, the 3He(1.8 GeV) + natAg can be described using and intranuclear cascade, INC, model; through a suitable selection of events a limit of the excitation energy that a nucleus can absorb without breaking into large pieces is given, it is shown, that corresponding alpha decay is consistent with an, evaporative process. (K.A.)