TIME-SCALE OF MULTIFRAGMENT EMISSION IN HE-4+AU COLLISIONS AT E A=3.65 GEV/NUCLEON/

The relative angular distribution of coincident intermediate mass frag ments (IMF) is studied for He-4 + Au collisions at 3.65 GeV/nucleon wi th the new 4 pi setup FASA installed at the JINR synchrophasotron. Str ong suppression of small relative angles is observed, which is attribu ted to the mutual Coulomb repulsion of emitted fragments. The multibod y Coulomb trajectory calculations are performed on an event-by-event b asis, varying the decay lifetime of the fragmenting system as a parame ter. The initial configurations for these calculations - fragment mass es, charges, starting positions, and velocities - are calculated in th e statistical multifragmentation model. The charges, masses, and excit ation energies of the fragmenting nuclei are estimated in the intranuc lear cascade approach. It is shown that the relative angular distribut ion of IMFs is very sensitive to the time scale of the multifragmentat ion process. The experimental data are well described assuming breakup of the system with less than 100 fm/c mean lifetime.