Recoil effects in sequential emission and Coulomb dissociation

We investigate the decay of an excited nucleus in which several light particles are emitted sequentially from the parent. A recursion relation is derived which relates the mean-square momenta of the emitted light particles and the final residue. The calculation of the mean-square residue momentum (or mean energy) is sensitive to the order in which particles are evaporated, and this sensitivity is explored using simulated evaporation cascades. The possibility of using the analysis to distinguish between the sequential mechanism and a prompt multifragmentation mechanism is discussed, and an application of the method to charge partitions of calcium measured in the reaction [sup 40]Ca+[sup nat]Cu at 35 MeV/nucleon with a multidetector is made.