Trends of light particle spectra observed in nucleus-nucleus collisions

The emission of energetic light particles (p,d,t) has been studied for ¹⁶O induced reactions on Al, Zr and Au targets at the incident energies of 140, 215 and 310 MeV. The light-particle energy spectra have been analyzed in terms of a moving thermal source. The apparent temperatures exhibit a systematic variation as a function of the incident energy per nucleon above the Coulomb barrier. The observed trend can be extrapolated in a smooth fashion to temperatures obtained in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.