Probing the Concept of Statistical Independence of Intermediate-Mass Fragment Production in Heavy-Ion Collisions

It is found that the total IMF-transverse-energy (E_t) spectra in multi-IMF events are well represented by synthetic spectra obtained by folding of the single-IMF spectrum. Using the experimental IMF multiplicity distribution, the observed trends in the IMF multiplicity distribution for fixed values of E_t are reproduced. The synthetic distributions show binomial reducibility and Arrhenius-like scaling, similar to that reported in the literature. Similar results are obtained when the above folding-type synthesis is replaced with one based on mixing events with different IMF multiplicities. For statistically independent IMF emission, the observed binomial reducibility and Arrhenius-type scaling are merely reflections of the shape of the single-IMF transverse-energy spectrum. Hence, a valid interpretation of IMF distributions in terms of a particular production scenario has to explain independently the observed shape of the single-IMF E_t spectrum.