Competition of coalescence and “fireball” processes in nonequilibrium emission of light charged particles from p+Au collisions

The energy and angular dependence of the double differential cross sections d(2)sigma/d Omega dE were measured for p, d, t,He-3,He-4,He-6, Li-6,Li-7,Li-8,Li-9, Be-7,Be-9,Be-10, and B-10,B-11,B-12 isotopes produced in reactions of 1.2- and 1.9-GeV protons on a Au target. The beam energy dependence of the data, supplemented by the cross sections from a previous experiment at 2.5 GeV, is very smooth. The shape of the spectra and angular distributions do not change significantly in the beam energy range from 1.2 to 2.5 GeV. However, the absolute value of the cross sections increases for all ejectiles. The intermediate mass fragment spectra and their angular distributions are very well reproduced by a phenomenological model of two emitting, moving sources, with parameters smoothly varying with energy. The double differential cross sections for light charged particles were analyzed in the framework of the microscopic model calculations of intranuclear cascade, including the coalescence of nucleons and a statistical model for evaporation of particles from excited residual nuclei. However, the energy and angular dependencies of the data agree with neither predictions of the microscopic intranuclear cascade calculations for protons nor the coalescence calculations for other light charged particles. A very good description of the data is achieved by the phenomenological inclusion of the emission of light charged particles from a "fireball" (i.e., a fast and hot moving source). It was found that the nonequilibrium processes are very important for the production of light charged particles. They exhaust 40%-80% of the total cross section-depending on the emitted particles. Coalescence and fireball emission yield comparable contributions to the cross sections with the exception of the He-3 data where coalescence clearly dominates. For all light charged particles, the ratio of nonequilibrium processes to processes proceeding through a phase of statistical equilibrium does not change significantly between the beam energies of 1.2 and 2.5 GeV.