Abstract: The evaporative cascade of neutral atoms from 
clusters is investigated using phase space theory and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. We focus here on the kinematics of sequential dissociation, by recording the translational kinetic energy distributions of the fragments for thermal excitations at fixed excitation energy or at fixed canonical temperature. The average kinetic energy of the monomers exhibits non-monotonic variations with excess energy, backbendings being found as the consequence of successive cooling processes. These effects are significantly washed out by the thermal broadening of the initial excitation. However, these backbendings do not necessarily reflect the intrinsic caloric curves of the clusters.
