Decay of hot nuclei formed with energetic antiprotons (PS208)

Energetic antiproton-nucleus interactions allow to build up thermal excitat ion energies exceeding 800 MeV in nuclei of masses close to 200. We found t hat for these high excitation energies the fission process still remains a very significant exit channel. At excitation energies close to 800 MeV the fission process approaches 20-50% of the cross section for Ho, Au and U-lik e nuclei depending on the fission events selection criteria. The average in termediate mass fragment multiplicity at such high excitation energies is e qual to about 1 and alpha particle multiplicity is equal to about 5 for all three reactions independently of the exit channel, including fission. A tr ansition towards the multifragmentation is not observed.