Projectile-like fragments from 20Ne + 197Au and the correlated energy transfer studied by counting the simultaneously emitted neutrons.

For the reaction $^{20}$Ne${+\mathrm{}}^{197}$Au at the bombarding energy of 290 MeV the number of neutrons emitted in coincidence with quasielastic projectile-like fragments is counted eventwise with high efficiency and is used to discriminate between the two most frequent processes leading to a given ejectile, (i) the transfer of n nucleons from the projectile to the target, and (ii) the transfer of (n-4) nucleons together with the (subsequent) emission of an \ensuremath{\alpha} particle. The two processes differ in the excitation energy given to the target-like residue and hence in the number of neutrons evaporated, and this difference appears also in the neutron-number ejectile-energy correlations. In the average, for each (9.3\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.0) MeV of excitation energy, one neutron is emitted. For process (i) (all missing projectile nucleons transferred to the target) the ejectiles' mean kinetic energies follow conventional momentum matching conditions up to the transfer of five nucleons. A marked deviation from the same momentum matching conditions is observed for the pure pickup channels and is attributed to an interesting correlation of excitation energy distribution with the direction of nucleon transfer.