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# Oscillation power as a test of stellar turbulence : Scanning the HR diagram

## 1 Introduction

The acoustic power injected into the $`p`$ modes by turbulent convection has been modeled by several authors (Balmforth, 1992; Goldreich et al., 1994; Goldreich & Keeley, 1977). In Samadi & Goupil (2000) a general formulation is proposed which allows to investigate more consistently different assumptions about the stellar turbulence such as its turbulent energy spectrum.

Providing that accurate measurements of the oscillation amplitudes and damping rates are available it is possible to evaluate the power injected into the modes and thus- by comparison with the observations- to constrain current theories (Samadi & Houdek, 2000).

In the present paper, the formulation, viewed as a diagnostic tool of stellar turbulent spectra, is used to compute oscillations power of several solar-like stars. We show that the expected low detection threshold of a space seismic experiment such as COROT (Baglin & The Corot Team, 1998) for instance will provide highly accurate acoustic power spectra and therefore important information on the associated turbulent spectrum if the solar-like oscillating targets are properly chosen.

## 2 Power injected into solar-like oscillations

### 2.1 Stochastic excitation

The acoustic power injected into the oscillations is defined (e.g. Goldreich et al., 1994) in terms of the damping rate $`\eta `$, the mean-square amplitude $`A^2`$, the mode inertia $`I`$ and oscillation frequency $`\omega `$ :

$`P(\omega )=\eta A^2I\omega ^2`$ (1)
The mean-square amplitude accounts for both the excitation by turbulent convection and the damping processes. It can be written in a simplified expression as

$$A^2\eta ^1_0^M𝑑m\rho _0w^4\left(\frac{\xi _r}{r}\right)^2𝒮(\omega ,m)$$
(2)
where $`\xi _r`$ is the radial displacement eigenfunction, $`\rho _0`$ the density, $`w`$ the vertical rms velocity of the convective elements and $`𝒮`$ the turbulent source function accounting for both the Reynolds and the entropy fluctuations. Detailed expressions for $`A^2`$ and $`𝒮`$ are given in Samadi & Goupil (2000). The source function involves the turbulent kinetic energy spectrum $`E(k)`$ and the turbulent spectrum $`E_s(k)`$ of the entropy fluctuations which can be related to $`E(k)`$ (e.g. Samadi et al., 2000a). The turbulent spectra in $`𝒮`$ are integrated over all eddy wavenumbers $`k`$ and $`𝒮`$ is in turn integrated in Eq.(2) over the stellar mass $`M`$.

### 2.2 Models for the solar turbulence

From the turbulence theory it is expected that $`E(k)`$ follows the Kolmogorov spectrum as $`E(k)k^p`$ with the slope $`p=5/3`$. Observations of the solar granulation allow one to determine the turbulent kinetic spectrum $`E(k)`$ of the Sun. Observations of the solar granulation by Espagnet et al. (1993) and Nesis et al. (1993). confirm the existence of a turbulent cascade with $`p5/3`$. On the other hand, in the $`k`$ range (small $`k`$) prior to the turbulent cascade of slope $`p5/3`$, Espagnet et al. (1993) determined a regime with a slope close to $`0.7`$ whereas Nesis et al. (1993) found a slope of $`p=5`$.

The spectrum observed by Espagnet et al. (1993) is modeled by the so called “Raised Kolmogorov Spectrum “ (RKS hereafter) as suggested by Musielak et al. (1994). We also consider two additional spectra: the “Nesis Kolmogorov Spectrum” (NKS hereafter) - in agreement with the observations of Nesis et al. (1993) \- and the “Broad Kolmogorov Spectrum” (BKS hereafter). These spectra (Figure 1) obey the Kolmogorov law for $`kk_0`$ where $`k_0`$ is the wavenumber at which the turbulent cascade begins.

The wavenumber $`k_0`$ is unknown but can be related to the mixing length $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ as $`k_0=2\pi /(\beta \mathrm{\Lambda })`$ where $`\beta `$ is a free parameter introduced for the arbitrariness of such definition (Samadi & Goupil, 2000). Moreover the definition of the eddy time correlation, which enters the description of the turbulent excitation, is somewhat arbitrary and is therefore gauged by introducing an additional free parameter $`\lambda `$. We show that the oscillation power computed on the Sun is very sensitive to the values of the free parameters $`\lambda `$, $`\beta `$ in Samadi et al. (2000a).

### 2.3 The solar case: comparison with observations and calibration of the free parameters

The power injected into the solar oscillations is related to the rms value $`v_s`$ of the surface velocity as

$$v_s^2=\xi _r^2(r_s)P/\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\eta I$$
(3)
where $`r_s`$ is the radius at which oscillations are measured. Observations of the solar oscillations provide $`v_s`$ and $`\eta `$ such that $`P(\omega )`$ can be evaluated according to Eq.(3).

The power $`P(\omega )`$ is computed for a calibrated solar model obtained with the CESAM code (Morel, 1997). Convection is described according to the classical mixing-length theory (Böhm - Vitense, 1958). The oscillation properties were obtained from the adiabatic FILOU pulsation code of Tran Minh & Leon (1995). The physical ingredients of the model are detailed in Samadi & Houdek (2000).

The free parameters are then adjusted to obtain the best fit of the frequency dependence and the maximum amplitude to the solar observations by Libbrecht (1988).

Results of the fitting are shown in Fig. 2. All spectra of Fig 1 fit well the solar observations at low frequency ($`\nu 3.5`$ mHz) while the main differences are observed at high frequency. The overall best agreement is obtained with the NKS. Details of the resulting adjustments are given in Samadi et al. (2000a).

## 3 Scanning the HR diagram

### 3.1 The models

We focus on low intermediate mass stars ($`1M2M_{}`$) because the existence of an outer convective shell enables stochastic excitation. The thickness of the convective shell depends in particular on the star luminosity ($`L`$) and effective temperature ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$). We thus consider six models well distributed in the solar-like oscillation region (Table 1). These models are based on the fundamental parameters of several bright stars which were selected as targets for EVRIS (Baglin et al., 1993). The equilibrium models and the associated eigenfunctions of these stars are obtained in the same way as for the solar model.

### 3.2 Star to star comparison

The acoustic power is computed for each selected star and for each of the three turbulent spectra of Fig.1 and is plotted for four of them in Fig.3. Of our 5 stars, model $`E`$ is the closest to the Sun in the HR diagram (Figure 4), hence its structure (assuming here the same chemical composition) is nearly the same than in the solar case. Accordingly the oscillation spectrum of model $`E`$ is quite similar to the solar one (except small differences at high frequency) and therefore does not show large differences when using different turbulent spectra (due to the solar calibration mentioned in Sect. 2.2); only small differences can be seen at high frequency. Same conclusion can be drawn for model $`D`$.

For a hotter star, the oscillation spectra computed with different turbulent spectra differ at low frequencies. As it is illustrated with the error bars and the detection threshold in Fig.2, such differences are significant enough to constrain stellar turbulent spectra providing that accurate measurements of $`P(\omega )`$ are available.

Differences in oscillation power between model $`E`$ (equivalently the Sun) and the other stars is related to the more extended outer convective zone (CZ hereafter) of model $`E`$. As the thickness of its CZ is larger, excitation of the low frequency oscillations involves all turbulent eddies. Therefore as for the Sun the power injected into low frequency oscillations is mainly governed by the eigenfunction behavior ($`\xi _r/r`$ and I) and not by the behavior of the turbulence in the energy injection range (i.e at large turbulent scale).

For the other hotter stars, the relative smaller size of their CZ causes the excitation region to be localized in a thinner domain where changes in the properties of $`\xi _r`$ are large. At a given frequency the extension of the excitation region changes with the considered turbulent spectra. Therefore the shape of $`P(\omega )`$ is very sensitive to both the properties of $`\xi _r`$ \- thus to $`\omega `$ \- and the behavior of the turbulent spectra. As a result, significantly large differences in term of $`P(\omega )`$ are observed when using different turbulent spectra. This feature is also well explained for Procyon (model $`C`$) in Samadi et al. (2000b).

Besides a temperature effect, there is also a luminosity (or mass) effect although much smaller. This is illustrated with model $`F`$ which is much hotter than model $`E`$ but shows only a very weak sensitivity to the choice of the turbulent spectrum when computing $`P(\omega )`$ (not shown here). In that sense, model $`F`$ is closer to the cooler model $`E`$ than to the other stars with similar effective temperatures. It is an intermediate case as it is less massive than for instance model $`C`$. Therefore the excitation region for this star extends deeper down compared to that of Procyon (model $`C`$).

Figure 4 presents a star to star comparison of the oscillation power computed assuming the NKS. The plot is performed in the HR diagram in order to depict the dependence of the power spectrum $`P(\omega )`$ with the effective temperature and the luminosity. As the star becomes hotter and more luminous the frequency domain where $`P(\omega )`$ takes significant values becomes smaller. This is due to the decrease of the cut-off frequency with increasing values of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`L`$.

### 3.3 Observational constraints

Observations of solar-like oscillations in Procyon have yet been only clearly discovered by Martic et al. (1999) and Barban et al. (1999) in spectroscopic surface velocity measurements. However currently Butler & et al. (2000) claimed the detection of solar like oscillations in $`\beta `$ Hydri.

Most of the current ground based observations are mainly limited by the daily aliases. In particular they cannot yet provide the growth rates $`\eta `$ which are necessary in order to compute $`P(\omega )`$ from Eq.(1). Thus we need observations of solar-like oscillations performed in such a way as to avoid the daily aliases. In particular space based experiments are particularly adapted for asteroseismology. The forthcoming space project COROT (Baglin & the Corot team, 1998) based on photometric measurements will reach a noise level of $`0.7`$ ppm (Auvergne & the COROT Team, 2000) and will thus detect oscillation amplitudes comparable to the solar ones ($`2`$ ppm). Furthermore the instrument will continuously monitor several stars during $`150`$ days giving a frequency precision of $`0.1\mu `$Hz such that accurate measurements of $`\eta `$ will be available.

Will this high accuracy enable us to constrain the theory of the stochastic excitation and the stellar turbulence ? The answer depends on the detection threshold and the accuracy in term of $`P(\omega )`$. For our stars here, $`\eta `$ are not currently available. It is possible however to evaluate crudely a detection threshold for $`P(\omega )`$. Indeed, the power is related to the root mean-square of the surface velocity $`v_s`$ according to Eq.(3) where $`r_s`$ is set to the radius at which $`T=T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$. In the adiabatic assumption $`v_s`$ is in turn simply related to the luminosity fluctuation $`\delta L`$ approximatively as (Kjeldsen & Bedding, 1995)

$$\delta L/Lv_sT_{\mathrm{eff}}^{1/2}$$
(4)
Eq.(3) and Eq.(4) enable us to derive an approximative relation

$$\frac{P}{P_{}}\left(\frac{\delta L/L}{\delta L_{}/L_{}}\right)^2\frac{T_{\mathrm{eff}}\eta I\xi _r^2}{\left(T_{\mathrm{eff}}\eta I\xi _r^2\right)_{}}$$
(5)
where quantities with a $``$ are relative to the Sun. Goldreich & Kumar (1991) derived a simplified equation for $`\eta `$ which allows us to express $`\eta /\eta _{}`$ as (see Houdek, 1996, section 3.4.4)

$$\frac{\eta }{\eta _{}}=\frac{L(Hc_s^2\omega R)^2I^1}{L_{}(Hc_s^2\omega R)_{}^2I_{}^1}$$
(6)
where $`c_s`$ and $`H`$ are the sound speed and the pressure scale height respectively evaluated at the top of the convection zone and $`R`$ is the star radius. Let $`s`$ be the detection threshold in terms of relative luminosity fluctuation $`\delta L/L`$ expressed in unity of $`(\delta L/L)_{}`$. The detection threshold $`P^{\mathrm{th}}(\omega )`$ in terms of oscillation power can be expressed with the help of Eqs(5,6) as

$`P^{\mathrm{th}}(\omega )=bs^2P_{}^{\mathrm{max}}{\displaystyle \frac{R^2\xi _r^2(\omega )\omega ^2}{R_{}^2\xi _{r,}^2(\omega _{\mathrm{max}})\omega _{\mathrm{max}}^2}}`$ (7)
$`\mathrm{with}b=T_{\mathrm{eff}}LH^2c_s^4/\left(T_{\mathrm{eff}}LH^2c_s^4\right)_{}`$
where $`\omega _{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`P_{}^{\mathrm{max}}`$ are the frequency position and the power at the maximum value of $`\delta L_{}/L_{}`$. In addition from Eq.(6) relative error bar in term of $`P`$ can be expressed as

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }P}{P}=2\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\delta L}{\delta L}+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\eta }{\eta }$$
(8)
where $`\eta `$ and $`\delta L`$ are evaluated according to Eqs.(6,5).

In Fig.3 the detection threshold $`P^{th}(\omega )`$ is plotted for the case $`s=1`$ which corresponds to 3 times the noise level (rms) of the COROT instrument. In addition the error bars $`\mathrm{\Delta }P`$ according to Eq.(8) is plotted assuming COROT’s performances, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta /2\pi 0.1\mu `$Hz and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\delta L0.7`$ ppm. Note that, as for the Sun, $`\mathrm{\Delta }P`$ is larger at high and low frequency because $`\delta L`$ becomes very smaller.

We conclude that the differences between the spectra for the hotter stars (models $`A`$ and $`C`$) are sufficiently large compared to error bars to identify the best turbulent spectrum.

## Conclusion

This work shows that for stars hotter and more massive than the Sun, the formulation of the power $`P(\omega )`$ injected into the solar-like oscillations is very sensitive to the way the turbulent stellar spectrum is modeled. For the Sun it is presently possible to constrain the solar turbulent spectrum from observations of the granulation. Such information is not directly available for other stars. Evaluation of $`P(\omega )`$ derived from the seismic observations of the solar-like oscillations (amplitudes and damping rates) will therefore provide constraints on the stellar turbulence.

In addition for a given spectrum it is found that the shape of $`P(\omega )`$ versus $`\omega `$ can change quite significantly from one star to the other. These differences are related to the size of the convection zone which depends on the fundamental parameters of the stars. A star to star comparison of the power derived from observations will thus provide additional constrains.

The accuracy of an observational determination of $`P(\omega )`$ depends on the accuracy of the measurements of the associated oscillation fluctuations $`\delta L`$ and the oscillations damping rates $`\eta `$. A crude relation derived in the present work allows to evaluate the COROT detection threshold and the accuracy in terms of $`P(\omega )`$. It suggests that futur space observations of such solar-like oscillating stars will measure acoustic powers $`P(\omega )`$ with an accuracy which will able us to identify the turbulent spectrum closest to reality.


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# Universal fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions in the Fermi energy domain

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## Abstract

We discuss the scaling laws of both the charged fragments multiplicity $`n`$ fluctuations and the charge of the largest fragment $`Z_{max}`$ fluctuations for $`Xe+Sn`$ collisions in the range of bombarding energies between $`25AMeV`$ and $`50AMeV`$. We show at $`E_{lab}\text{ }>32MeV/A`$ the transition in the fluctuation regime of $`Z_{max}`$ which is compatible with the transition from the ordered to disordered phase of excited nuclear matter. The size (charge) of the largest fragment is closely related to the order parameter characterizing this process.

\]

Theoretical description of the fragment production in heavy-ion (HI) collisions depends on whether the equilibrium has been reached before the system starts fragmenting. Possibility of the critical behavior associated with the transition from the particle evaporation regime at low excitation energies to the explosion of the hot source at about 5 - 10 MeV/nucleon cannot be excluded. Unfortunately, this exciting possibility is difficult to study because all standard models and methods of characterizing different phases and transitions of the nuclear matter in HI collisions assume an equilibrium mechanism of the fragment production. In this work, we shall apply new methods of the theory of universal fluctuations of observables in finite systems  to examine what can be said in a model independent way about the fragmentation mechanism and the phase changement in HI collisions in the Fermi energy domain. Our analysis, which is independent of the assumption of the equilibrium in the fragments production process, uses the data of the INDRA multidetector system for $`Xe+Sn`$ collisions at $`25MeVE_{lab}/A50MeV`$ .

Several features of finite systems are important if one wants to study either the criticality or the distance to the critical point . These are :

(i) The $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-scaling of the normalized probability distribution $`P_{<m>}[m]`$ of the variable $`m`$ for different ’system sizes’ $`<m>`$ :

$`<m>^\mathrm{\Delta }P_{<m>}[m]`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })}),0<\mathrm{\Delta }1`$ (1)
$`z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })}`$ $`=`$ $`(mm^{})/<m>^\mathrm{\Delta },`$ (3)
where $`<m>`$ and $`m^{}`$ are the average and the most probable values of $`m`$ respectively, and $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })})`$ is the positive defined scaling function which depends only on a single scaled variable $`z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })}`$. If the scaling framework holds, the scaling relation (1) is valid independently of any phenomenological reasons for changing $`<m>`$ . The scaling domain in (1) is defined by the asymptotic behaviour of $`P_{<m>}[m]`$ when $`m\mathrm{}`$ and $`<m>\mathrm{}`$, but $`z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })}`$ has a finite value. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$scaling analysis is very robust and can be studied even in small systems if the probability distributions $`P_{<m>}[m]`$ are known with a sufficient precision. In small systems however, the value of scaling parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ may differ slightly from its asymptotic value  ;

(ii) The tail of the scaling function $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })})`$ and the anomalous dimension g.
All these features are related to the properties of the scaling function which characterizes the finite system.

If the infinite system experiences a second-order phase transition, and if $`m`$ is the extensive (scalar) order parameter then  :

(i) At the critical point, the corresponding finite system exhibits the ’first-scaling law’ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$) and the tail of scaling function for large positive $`z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })}`$ : $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })})\mathrm{exp}(z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })}^{\stackrel{~}{\nu }})`$, is characterized by a large value of the exponent $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }=1/(1g)>2`$.

(ii) The finite system exhibits the ’second-scaling law’ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/2`$) in the ordered phase, and the first-scaling law in the disordered phase. In both cases, the tail of the scaling function is gaussian ($`\stackrel{~}{\nu }=2`$). Close to the critical point, one may find also the cross-over phenomenon from the first-scaling to the second-scaling law by the continuous $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-scaling law, again with the gaussian tail of the scaling function.

If the parameter $`m`$ is not singular at the transition, then its probability distribution follows the second-scaling law with the gaussian tail.

There are two generic families of the fragment production scenarios for which the second-order phase transition has been identified. The family of aggregation scenarios contains both equilibrium models like the Fisher droplet model, the Ising model or the percolation model, and off-equilibrium models like the Smoluchowski model of gelation. In these models, the average size of the largest cluster $`<s_{max}>`$ is the order parameter  and the exponent $`\tau `$ of the power-law cluster-size distribution at the critical point ($`\tau >2`$) : $`n(s)s^\tau `$, is related to the anomalous dimension as : $`g=1/(\tau 1)`$. The second family includes fragmentation scenarios and contains

various hybrids of the fragmentation - inactivation - binary model . In this family of models, the average fragment multiplicity $`<n>`$ is the order parameter of the critical shattering process and the exponent $`\tau `$ at the critical point ($`\tau <2`$) is related to the anomalous dimension as : $`g=\tau 1`$. The order parameters for these two different scenarios are not only relevant in the study of phase changes in HI collisions but they are also measurable. In this work, we shall investigate the patterns of the largest fragment charge distribution $`P[Z_{max}]`$ and the charged fragment multiplicity distribution $`P[n]`$ for different centrality conditions and bombarding energies in the Fermi energy domain, using the methods of the theory of universal fluctuations of observables in finite systems .

Fig. 1 shows the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-scaling features of $`P[Z_{max}]`$ distributions for central $`Xe+Sn`$ collisions at $`25MeVE_{lab}/A50MeV`$. In the experiment a great effort was done to well identify in charge the different fragments produced and especially the heaviest ones . For each collision energy about 20000 events are taken into account in the present analysis. These events are selected with the experimental centrality condition : complete events (i.e., more than 80% of the total charge and momentum is detected) and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{flow}\pi /3`$. The latter quantity is a global observable defined as the angle between the beam direction and the main emission direction of matter in each event, which is determined from the energy tensor. It has been shown for the reactions in the Fermi energy domain that events with small $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{flow}`$ are dominated by binary dissipative collisions . For events with little or no memory of the entrance channel, $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{flow}`$ is isotropically distributed. The upper part of the figure (Fig. 1a) shows that $`P[Z_{max}]`$distributions for $`E_{lab}/A=39,45,50MeV`$ can be compressed into a single curve in the scaling variables of the first-scaling. The distributions for 25 and 32 $`MeV`$, which show strong deviations with respect to this scaling curve both near the maximum and in the tail for large $`z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })}`$, can be compressed into another single curve in the variables of the second-scaling, as shown in Fig. 1b. It should be stressed that we do not optimize the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ because of the experimental (number of events) and theoretical (smallness of the system) limits, but we study whether the data is consistent with one of the two limits : $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/2`$ and 1, which have a particular significance in the scaling theory of phase-transitions.

More straightforward global measure of scaling features is provided by the cumulant moments : $`\kappa _1=<m>,\kappa _2=<m^2><m>^2,\kappa _3=<m^3>3<m^2><m>+2<m>^3`$, etc. In case of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-scaling, normalized cumulant moments : $`𝒦_q^{(\mathrm{\Delta })}\kappa _q/(\kappa _1)^{q\mathrm{\Delta }},`$ are independent of the system size $`<m>`$ . Log of the normalized cumulant moment $`𝒦𝒦_2^{(\mathrm{\Delta }=1)}`$ of $`P[Z_{max}]`$ is plotted in Fig. 1c versus log of $`<Z_{max}>^2`$, i.e. versus log of $`(\kappa _1)^2`$. The data for different $`<Z_{max}>`$, i.e. for different bombarding energies, should lie on a straight line if the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-scaling holds. The slope of this line gives the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. It is seen that the higher energy branch ($`E_{lab}/A=39,45,50MeV`$) follows the line $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$ (the solid line), in agreement with Fig. 1a. The point for $`E_{lab}/A=25MeV`$ is clearly off this line. The point for $`E_{lab}/A=32MeV`$ aligns along the line $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/2`$ (the dashed line) passing through the point for $`E_{lab}/A=25MeV`$, but is also close to the line $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$. In this ’near-crossing’ case, one has to investigate higher order moments, viz the whole probability distribution. Fortunately, Figs. 1a, 1b show clearly that the collisions at 32 $`MeV/A`$ belong to the branch $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/2`$.

The pattern of charged fragment multiplicity distributions $`P[n]`$ does not show any significant evolution with the bombarding energy (Fig. 2), and the data is perfectly compressible in the scaling variables of the second-scaling, i.e. the multiplicity fluctuations are small ($`\kappa _q(\kappa _1)^{q/2}`$) in the whole studied range of bombarding energies. The scaling features of experimental $`P[Z_{max}]`$ and $`P[n]`$ probability distributions in Figs. 1 and 2 are complementary and allow to affirm that the fragment production in central HI reactions in the Fermi energy domain follows the aggregation scenario and exhibits the transition at $`E_{lab}/A\text{ }>32MeV`$ between the two phases of excited nuclear matter with distinctly different patterns of $`Z_{max}`$fluctuations.

Assuming that the change of the fragmentation regime is controlled by the source excitation energy, one may ask to which extent similar scaling features and transitions can be seen in more peripheral collisions. For that purpose, we have investigated a sample of events selected with the experimental condition : complete events and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{flow}\pi /18`$. This sample contains mostly events of semi-central binary collisions which keep some memory of the entrance channel as manifested by the presence of two contributions in the velocity distribution of $`Z_{max}`$ corresponding to the quasi-projectile and quasi-target . Fig. 3a shows that $`Z_{max}`$distributions for $`E_{lab}/A=`$ 45 and 50 $`MeV`$ can be compressed into a single curve in the variables of the first-scaling. The distributions for

25, 32 and 39 $`MeV`$ show significant deviations with respect to this scaling curve, both at the maximum and in the large-$`z_{(\mathrm{\Delta })}`$ tail. These three distributions are shown in Fig. 3b in the variables of the second-scaling. $`P[Z_{max}]`$distributions for $`E_{lab}/A=`$ 25 and 32 $`MeV`$ can be perfectly compressed into a single curve. The data for $`E_{lab}/A=`$ 39 $`MeV`$ is close to this curve but, nevertheless, shows some deviations for $`z_{(1/2)}1`$. This data, which seems to be intermediate between the scaling limits $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$, could indicate a continuous change of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the transition region. There are presently not enough data to verify this possibility. We note however, that an optimal data compression for $`E_{lab}/A=`$ 32 and 39 $`MeV`$ would indicate $`\mathrm{\Delta }0.6`$ for the latter one.

The scaling pattern of $`P[Z_{max}]`$ in semi-peripheral collisions follows a similar general evolution with the bombarding energy (the excitation energy) as seen in central collisions, except that the branch $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$ in semi-central collisions starts at higher energies than in central collisions. Fig. 3c presents all $`Z_{max}`$distributions which in semi-central and in central collisions belong to the respective first-scaling branches. It is non-trivial that these probability distributions, which correspond to different selection criteria, collapse approximately into the unique scaling curve. This example should encourage further investigation of the feasibility of semi-central events in this kind of studies. One should also note that the scaling functions in the branch $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/2`$ are essentially identical in semi-central and central collisions (compare Figs. 1b and 3b).

The characteristic feature of critical behavior is the anomalous tail of the scaling function with $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }>2`$. Using all $`P[Z_{max}]`$ shown in Fig. 3c, we have fitted the scaling function $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z_{(1)})`$ for $`z_{(1)}>0`$ by : $`a\mathrm{exp}(b(z_{(1)}z_0)^{\stackrel{~}{\nu }})`$, where $`z_0`$ is the estimate of the most probable value of the distribution and $`a,b,\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ are the fitting parameters. We have found : $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }=1.6\pm 0.4`$, what is incompatible with typical values $`(3.5\text{ }<\stackrel{~}{\nu }\text{ }<6)`$ in the critical region for aggregation scenarios . The same procedure for central and semi-central collisions in the second-scaling phase yields : $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }=1.8\pm 0.4`$. Hence, the existing data do not show the critical bahavior in the transition region from ordered to disordered phase.

In conclusion, we have applied the theory of universal fluctuations in the finite systems  to the symmetric HI reactions in the Fermi energy domain. This theory provides rigorous methods to characterize critical and off-critical behaviors both in equilibrium and off-equilibrium finite systems. This is an important novel aspect of the present analysis. Convincing scaling behavior of the $`Z_{max}`$ and $`n`$distributions have been found in central collisions. The present analysis shows that the fragment production in central HI collisions at around the Fermi energy is governed by the aggregation scenario with $`<Z_{max}>`$ as the order parameter. The changement of the regime of $`Z_{max}`$fluctuations from the second-scaling at low energies to the first-scaling at higher energies, with the gaussian tail of the scaling function in both regimes, is compatible with the transition from the ordered phase to the disordered phase. The scaling curves determined from central and semi-central collisions are the same but the bombarding energy corresponding to change in the scaling behavior is higher for more peripheral collisions, in according with the expected stronger contribution of non-equilibrium effects in these collisions. The critical region, if exists in the nuclear fragmentation process, should be searched for in the narrow window of bombarding energies close to : $`E_{lab}/A32MeV`$. Its signature would be the anomalous tail $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }>2`$ of $`P[Z_{max}]`$, in case of the second-order phase transition, or the double-hump shape of $`P[Z_{max}]`$distribution for the first-order phase transition . Future studies of symmetric HI reactions, performed in small steps of bombarding energies, will hopefully allow to distinguish between the cross-over phenomenon and the other two scenarios which invoke existence of the phase-transition.

Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Collaboration INDRA for providing us the experimental data. We thank J.-L. Charvet and J. Colin for stimulating discussions.