Experimental signals of phase transition Original Research Article

The connection between the thermodynamics of charged finite nuclear systems and the asymptotically measured partitions is presented. Some open questions, concerning in particular equilibrium partitions are discussed. We show a detailed comparison of the decay patterns inAu + C, Cu, Au central collisions and inAu quasi-projectile events. Observation of abnormally large fluctuations in carefully selected samples of data is reported as an indication of a first order phase transition (negative heat capacity) in the nuclear equation of state.