The Nuclear Liquid-Gas Phase Transition: Present Status and Future Perspectives

Abstract

More than two decades ago, the van der Waals behavior of the nucleon - nucleon force inspired the idea of a liquid-gas phase transition in nuclear matter. Heavy-ion reactions at relativistic energies offer the unique possibility for studying this phase transition in a finite, hadronic system. A general overview of this subject is given emphasizing the most recent results on nuclear calorimetry.

20 pages, TeX with 16 included figures; Proceedings of the 1st Catania Relativistic Ion Studies: Critical Phenomena and Collective Observables, Acicastello, May 27-31, 1996, to be published by World Scientific Publ. Co.; also available from http://www-kp3.gsi.de/www/kp3/aladin_publications.html