Evaporation residue as a dominant exit channel at high thermal energies inHe-3+Ag reactions

In the reaction He-3 (1.8 GeV) + Ag-nat, events are observed with a heavy f ragment(HF), A greater than or equal to 10, in coincidence with charged par ticles detected over 70% of 4 pi solid angle. Calorimetric measurements sho w high thermal excitation energies of the target primary fragment: 6-8 MeV per nucleon for HF mass greater than or similar to 45. For these excitation energies, the probability for having an evaporative residue is shown to be unexpectedly high when compared with current multifragmentation models. Th is result is interpreted as linked to the use of light ion projectiles at r elatively low incident energy. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights re served.