Saturation of the width of the giant dipole resonance at high temperature

The ..gamma..-ray spectrum in the giant dipole resonance (GDR) region associated with the reaction /sup 40/Ar+/sup 70/Ge at 10 MeV/nucleon has been measured in coincidence with residues of the heavy composite systems whose excitation energy was E/sup */ = 230 MeV. From the statistical-model analysis, it is deduced that the GDR strength is consistent with 100% of the energy-weighted sum rule, the energy is 16 +- 1 MeV while the width is 13/sub -2//sup +1/ MeV. This value is not very different from the one measured at E/sup */ = 130 MeV, thus pointing to saturation effects in the damping of the GDR.