The isoscaling parameter $\alpha$, from the fragments produced in the multifragmentation of $^{58}$Ni + $^{58}$Ni, $^{58}$Fe + $^{58}$Ni and $^{58}$Fe + $^{58}$Fe reactions at 30, 40 and 47 MeV/nucleon, was compared with that predicted by the antisymmetrized molecular dynamic (AMD) calculation based on two different nucleon-nucleon effective forces, namely the Gogny and Gogny-AS interaction. The results show that the data agrees better with the choice of Gogny-AS effective interaction, resulting in a symmetry energy of $\sim$ 18-20 MeV. The observed value indicate that the fragments are formed at a reduced density of $\sim$ 0.08 fm$^{-3}$.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C (Rapid Communication

Methods of extraction of the symmetry energy (or enthalpy) coefficient to temperature ratio from isobaric and isotopic yields of fragments produced in Fermi-energy heavy-ion collisions are discussed. We show that the methods are consistent when the hot fragmenting source is well characterized and its excitation energy and isotopic composition are properly taken into account. The results are independent of the mass number of the detected fragments, which suggests that their fate is decided very early in the reaction.

A new thermometer based on fragment momentum fluctuations is presented. This thermometer exhibited residual contamination from the collective motion of the fragments along the beam axis. For this reason, the transverse direction has been explored. Additionally, a mass dependence was observed for this thermometer. This mass dependence may be the result of the Fermi momentum of nucleons or the different properties of the fragments (binding energy, spin etc..) which might be more sensitive to different densities and temperatures of the exploding fragments. We expect some of these aspects to be smaller for protons (and/or neutrons); consequently, the proton transverse momentum fluctuations were used to investigate the temperature dependence of the source.

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