Caloric curve and multifragmentation in heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies

Based on a canonical ensemble treatment, a unique description of multifragmentation and equation of state for isospin non-degenerated nuclear matter is constructed within a statistical model for a fragmenting nuclear system. The free energy of primary fragments is defined by a liquid-drop approximation of the statistical multifragmentation model. Exact solutions for the canonical particles function of the decaying nuclear system are obtained by means of recurrent relations. For certain thermodynamic parameters this model exhibits a phase transition of the liquid-gas type. Fragment multiplicity distributions as well as temperate and volume dependence of thermodynamic quantities are calculated. The caloric curve characterizing the phase transition under question is discussed. The effective parameter ρ of the fragment charge distributions and the average multiplicity of intermediate mass fragments are compared with appropriate experimental data from heavy-ion collisions