Liquid-gas phase transition and Coulomb instability of asymmetric nuclear systems

We use a chiral SU(3) quark mean field model to study the properties of nuclear systems at finite temperature. The liquid-gas phase transition of symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter is discussed. For two formulations of the model the critical temperature, $T_c$, for symmetric nuclear matter is found to be 15.8 MeV and 17.9 MeV. These values are consistent with those derived from recent experiments. The limiting temperatures for finite nuclei are in good agreement with the experimental points.