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

The -ray spectrum in the giant dipole resonance (GDR) region associated with the reaction ^40Ar+^70Ge at 10 MeV/nucleon has been measured in coincidence with residues of the heavy composite systems whose excitation energy was E^*=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 161 MeV while the width is 13-₂^+1 MeV. This value is not very different from the one measured at E^*=130 MeV, thus pointing to saturation effects in the damping of the GDR.