Effects of nuclear symmetry energy on eta meson production and its rare decay to the dark U-boson in heavy-ion reactions

Abstract

Using a relativistic transport model ART1.0, we explore effects of nuclear symmetry energy on eta meson production and its rare decay to the dark U-boson in heavy-ion reactions from 0.2 to 10 GeV/nucleon available at several current and future facilities. The yield of eta mesons at sub-threshold energies is found to be very sensitive to the density dependence of nuclear symmetry energy. Above a beam energy of about 5 GeV/nucleon in Au+Au reactions, the sensitivity to symmetry energy disappears. Using the branching ratio of the rare eta decay (eta->gamma U) available in the literature, we estimate the maximum cross section for the U-boson production in the energy range considered, providing a useful reference for future U-boson search using heavy-ion reactions.

7 pages, 5 figures, revised version, accepted by PLB

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Nuclear dynamics and particle production near threshold energies in heavy-ion collisions
• Probing nuclear symmetry energy at high densities using pion, kaon, eta and photon productions in heavy-ion collisions
• In-medium and isospin effects on particle production near threshold energies in heavy-ion collisions
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• Decomposition of sensitivity of the symmetry energy observables
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• Effects of the high-momentum tail of nucleon momentum distribution on the isospin-sensitive observables
• Preequilibrium particle emissions and in-medium effects on the pion production in heavy-ion collisions
• Determination of the density region of the symmetry energy probed by the ${\pi }^{-}/{\pi }^{+}$ ratio
• A possible probe of the new fifth force
• Origins and Impacts of High-Density Symmetry Energy