Probing the symmetry energy at high baryon density with heavy ion collisions

Abstract

The nuclear symmetry energy at densities above saturation density (${\rho }_0\sim 0.16f{m}^{-3}$) is poorly constrained theoretically and very few relevant experimental data exist. Its study is possible through Heavy Ion Collisions (HIC) at energies $E/A>200$ MeV, particularly with beams of neutron-rich radioactive nuclei. The energy range implies that the momentum dependence of the isospin fields, i.e. the difference of the effective masses on protons and neutrons, also has to be investigated before a safe constraint on $\esy(ρ)$ is possible. We discuss the several observables which have been suggested, like $n/p$ emission and their collective flows and the ratio of meson yields with different isospin projection, ${\pi }^{-}/{\pi }^{+}$ and $K^0/K^{+}$. We point out several physical mechanisms that should be included in the theoretical models to allow a direct comparison to the more precise experiments which will be able to distinguish the isospin projection of the detected particles: CSR/Lanzhou, FAIR/GSI, RIBF/RIKEN, FRIB/MSU.

12 opages, 5 figures, Proceedings of IWND09 - 22-25 August 2009 Shanghai (China)

References in corpus (8)

• Constraints on the high-density nuclear equation of state from the phenomenology of compact stars and heavy-ion collisions
• Systematics of pion emission in heavy ion collisions in the 1A GeV regime
• From Kadanoff-Baym dynamics to off-shell parton transport
• Isospin effects on sub-threshold kaon production at intermediate energies
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• Differential Neutron-Proton Squeeze-out
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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Contribution of isovector mesons to the symmetry energy in a microscopic model