The nucleation parameter for heavy-ion induced bubble nucleation in superheated emulsion detector

The values of the nucleation parameter, k, for bubble nucleation induced by high energy heavy ions 12C (180 MeV/u), 20Ne (400 MeV/u) and 28Si (350 MeV/u) in superheated emulsion detector are determined by comparing the experimentally obtained normalized count rates with those obtained from simulations done using the GEANT3.21 simulation code. The results show that the nucleation parameter depends on the mass number of the incident heavy ions, and decreases with increasing mass number.