Abstract
The relative-angle distributions of IMFs, studied for the system α +
197Au at 3.6 GeV/nucleon, show a strong suppression of small relative angles. By multi-body Coulomb trajectory calculations it is shown that the magnitude of this effect is very sensitive to the time scale of the IMF emission. The experimental angular distributions are well described assuming a fast breakup of the system with time less than 100 fm/c between IMF emissions.