The complete fragmentation of highly excited and multi-charged C n q+ clusters (n=5-10; q=2-4), produced in high velocity collisions with atoms, has been measured. Multiplicity distributions were extracted and used to deduce, within a statistical framework, the partitioning of energy between fragment's production and fragment's kinetic energy releases (KER) in these systems [1]. This partitioning was found to scale as the charge over mass ratio q/n of the cluster (figure). It illustrates for

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... first time, through qualitative and quantitative aspects, the role of the coulomb perturbation in the partitioning of energy of fragmenting clusters. q/n 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 pk (%) 0 20 40 60 80 100 Figure 1 : Part of the internal energy dissipated in KER, in %, as a function of the cluster charge over mass ratio q/n. Circles: q=2; Triangles: q=3; Squares: q=4. The solid line is a linear regression of the data. [1] M. Chabot et al PRL 104, 043401 (2010)