Fusion and reaction mechanism evolution in 24 Mg + 12 C at intermediate energies

The formation and deexcitation of fusionlike events selected in events with a total charge equal or greater than 16 in ${}^{24}\mathrm{Mg}{+}^{12}\mathrm{C}$ system has been investigated at 25, 35, and 45 MeV/nucleon with a large multidetector array. Central single-source events are selected by use of the statistical discriminant analysis method applied to a set of 26 global variables. The fusion cross section has been extracted for the three bombarding energies and compared to other experimental data and to theoretical predictions. The total multiplicity is found to first increase to a maximum value and then decrease with increasing beam energy. It is shown that this behavior is connected to the opening of multifragmentation channels at 45 MeV/nucleon and the disappearance of channels with only light charged particles.