The High-Density Symmetry Energy in Heavy Ion Collisions

Abstract

The nuclear symmetry energy as a function of density is rather poorly constrained theoretically and experimentally both below saturation density, but particularly at high density, where very few relevant experimental data exist. We discuss observables which could yield information on this question, in particular, proton-neutron flow differences, and the production of pions and kaons in relativistic heavy ion collisions. For the meson production we investigate particularly ratios of the corresponding isospin partners ${\pi }^{-}/{\pi }^{+}$ and $K^0/K^{+}$, where we find that the kaons are an interesting probe to the symmetry energy. In this case we also discuss the influnece of various choices for the kaon potentials or in-medium effective masses.

7 pages, 5 figures. Proceedings of the 2008 Erice School on Nuclear Physics

References in corpus (5)

• Constraints on the high-density nuclear equation of state from the phenomenology of compact stars and heavy-ion collisions
• Relativistic model for nuclear matter and atomic nuclei with momentum-dependent self-energies
• Isospin effects on sub-threshold kaon production at intermediate energies
• Isospin dependence of relative yields of $K^{+}$ and $K^0$ mesons at 1.528 AGeV
• Isospin Dynamics in Heavy Ion Collisions: from Coulomb Barrier to Quark Gluon Plasma

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Equations of state for supernovae and compact stars
• On the appearance of hyperons in neutron stars
• Probing the Nuclear Symmetry Energy with Heavy Ion Collisions
• Sensitivity of neutron to proton ratio toward the high density behavior of symmetry energy in heavy-ion collisions
• Understanding the symmetry energy using data from the ALADIN-2000 Collaboration taken at the GSI Large Neutron Detector
• Model dependence of isospin sensitive observables at high densities
• Initialization effects of nucleon profile on the $\pi$ yields in heavy-ion collisions at medium energies
• Symmetry energy effects on isovector properties of neutron rich nuclei with a Thomas-Fermi approach
• Pion production and absorption in heavy-ion collisions