Formation and Decay of Hot Nuclei

Abstract

The development of Nuclear Physics for few decades have been performed in two directions : microscopic and macroscopic ones. In the first case, the Physicist is interested in the detailed arrangement of nucleons inside a nucleus and to the underlying fundamental interactions. In the second case, he is interested in global properties of nuclei and the corresponding variables or concepts of interest are named temperature, excitation energy, angular momentum, compression or equation of state. Hot nuclei studies are connected with the second kind of research. In these lectures, we want to discuss what we know today on the formation and decay of these objects and how their knowledge can teach something about general properties of nuclear matter. After a brief review of the reactions in which hot nuclei can be formed, we will discuss the variables which are used to describe them. We will also consider the corresponding theoretical descriptions and their limits when extreme states are reached. Experimental evidences for hot nuclei formation will be presented : the corresponding decay properties are generally used as signatures, but we will assert how dynamical effects have to be undertood and properly simulated in order to draw reliable conclusions.