Fluctuations in multifragment decays

An analysis of charged particle distributions is performed to search for large fluctuations and signals of intermittency in 36 Ar + 197 Au reactions at E/A=35–110 MeV. When the effects of impact-parameter averaging are reduced by appropriate cuts on the total transverse energy, charged particle multiplicity distributions narrower than Poisson distributions are observed. Such distributions are inconsistent with intermittency signals of non-trivial origin.