Disappearance of transverse flow in Au plus Au collisions - art. no. 021602

The balance energy at which repulsive nucleon-nucleon scattering balances t he attractive force due to the nuclear mean field is measured for the first time for the Au+Au reaction. The observed balance energy of 42+/-3(stat)+/ -1(sys) MeV/nucleon agrees with the previously established power law depend ence of E-bal bn system mass, providing evidence that the Coulomb interacti on does not suppress the attractive mean field near the balance energy, in contrast to recent theoretical predictions.