Deflection of non-equilibrium light particles by the nuclear mean field

Since the collective motion in the nuclear mean field is damped by individual nucleon-nucleon collisions, the relative importance of positive and negative emission angles is sensitive to the interplay between mean field dynamics and two-body dissipation. These issues have been addressed experimentally by determining the sign of the average emission angle of non-equilibrium ight particles from the circular polarization of associated γ-rays emitted by the residual nucleus for 14N induced reactions on 154Sm at E/A = 20 and E/A = 35 MeV. For these mass-asymmetric systems, the light particle spectra are dominated by non-equilibrium processes. The experiment was performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University