Short timescale behavior of colliding heavy nuclei at intermediate energies

Noncentral collisions of $^{114}\mathrm{Cd}$ projectiles with $^{92}\mathrm{Mo}$ target nuclei at $E/A=50$ MeV are explored with an antisymmetrized molecular dynamics model. These collisions are found to be essentially binary in character with formation of an excited projectile-like fragment (PLF${}^{*}$) and targetlike fragment (TLF${}^{*}$). The average excitation energy deduced for the PLF${}^{*}$ and TLF${}^{*}$ saturates for midcentral collisions, $3.5\ensuremath{\le}b\ensuremath{\le}6$ fm, with its magnitude depending on the cluster recognition time. For short cluster recognition times $(t=150\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{fm}/c)$, an average excitation energy as high as \ensuremath{\approx}6 MeV is determined, indicating a short statistical lifetime for the fragments produced. Evidence for such a rapid deexcitation is observed in the present calculations.