  Fragmentation reactions with intermediate-energy heavy-ion beams exhibit a
wide range of reaction mechanisms, ranging from direct reactions to statistical
processes. We examine this transition by measuring the relative population of
excited states in several sd-shell nuclei produced by fragmentation with the
number of removed nucleons ranging from two to sixteen. The two-nucleon removal
is consistent with a non-dissipative process whereas the removal of more than
five nucleons appears to be mainly statistical.
