Eigenmoments for Multifragmentation

Abstract

Linear rate equations are used to describe the cascading decay of an initial heavy cluster into fragments. Using a procedure inspired by the similar, but continuous case of jet fragmentation in QCD, this discretized process may be analyzed into eigenmodes, corresponding to moments of the distribution of multiplicities. The orders of these moments are usually noninteger numbers. The resulting analysis can be made time independent and is applicable to various phenomenological multifragmentation processes, in which case it leads to new approximate finite-size scaling relations for the spectrum of fragments.