Splintering central collisions: Systematics of momentum and energy deposition for<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:mn>17</mml:mn><mml:mn/><mml:mo>–</mml:mo><mml:mn>1</mml:mn><mml:mn>1</mml:mn><mml:mn>5</mml:mn><mml:mo>)</mml:mo><mml:mi>A</mml:mi><mml:mi/><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">MeV</mml:mi></mml:math><mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msup><mml:mrow/><mml:mrow><mml:mn>40</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msup></mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Ar</mml:mi></mml:math>

Measurements are reported for fragment masses and velocities from the reactions $(17--115)A\mathrm{MeV}$ ${}^{40}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{r}+\mathrm{C}\mathrm{u},$ Ag, and Au. Charged particle multiplicities were used to select the most violent reactions, and systematics are reported for the momentum and energy deposition. These reactions are fusionlike for $\ensuremath{\lesssim}44A\mathrm{MeV}$ ${}^{40}\mathrm{Ar}$ with a large fraction of momentum and energy deposition in the heavy nuclear system. However, for $\ensuremath{\gtrsim}44A\mathrm{MeV}$ ${}^{40}\mathrm{Ar},$ a majority of the projectile energy and momentum is carried away by a multibody spray of light ejectiles and only a minority is deposited in the heavy nucleus. Nevertheless heavy composite systems are formed with up to 9--12 MeV per source nucleon for $115A\mathrm{MeV}$ ${}^{40}\mathrm{Ar}.$