Links Between Heavy Ion and Astrophysics

Abstract

Heavy ion experiments provide important data to test astrophysical models. The high density equation of state can be probed in HI collisions and applied to the hot protoneutron star formed in core collapse supernovae. The Parity Radius Experiment (PREX) aims to accurately measure the neutron radius of ${}^{208}$Pb with parity violating electron scattering. This determines the pressure of neutron rich matter and the density dependence of the symmetry energy. Competition between nuclear attraction and coulomb repulsion can form exotic shapes called nuclear pasta in neutron star crusts and supernovae. This competition can be probed with multifragmentation HI reactions. We use large scale semiclassical simulations to study nonuniform neutron rich matter in supernovae. We find that the coulomb interactions in astrophysical systems suppress density fluctuations. As a result, there is no first order liquid vapor phase transition. Finally, the virial expansion for low density matter shows that the nuclear vapor phase is complex with significant concentrations of alpha particles and other light nuclei in addition to free nucleons.

8 pages, 6 figures. To be published in "Dynamics and Thermodynamics with Nucleon Degrees of Freedom", eds. P. Chomaz, F. Gulminelli, J. Natowitz, and S. Yennello, http://cyclotron.tamu.edu/wci3/wci_book.html

References in corpus (22)

• Determination of the Equation of State of Dense Matter
• The Physics of Neutron Stars
• Isospin Asymmetry in Nuclei and Neutron Stars
• Neutron Star Structure and the Neutron Radius of 208Pb
• Relativistic Mean-Field Theory and the High-Density Nuclear Equation of State
• Parity Violating Measurements of Neutron Densities
• The Physics of Core-Collapse Supernovae
• Evidence for a Soft Nuclear Equation-of-State from Kaon Production in Heavy Ion Collisions
• Neutrino-pasta scattering: the opacity of nonuniform neutron-rich matter
• Cluster Formation and The Virial Equation of State of Low-Density Nuclear Matter
• Dynamical response of the nuclear pasta in neutron star crusts
• Nonuniform Neutron-Rich Matter and Coherent Neutrino Scattering
• Constraining URCA cooling of neutron stars from the neutron radius of 208Pb
• Limiting temperatures and the Equation of State of Nuclear Matter
• Quiescent Thermal Emission from the Neutron Star in Aql X-1
• Parity Violating Elastic Electron Scattering and Coulomb Distortions
• The Virial Equation of State of Low-Density Neutron Matter
• Formation of hot heavy nuclei in supernova explosions
• Multifragmentation reactions and properties of hot stellar matter at subnuclear densities
• Nuclear liquid-gas phase transition and supernovae evolution
• Entropic Barriers, Frustration and Order: Basic Ingredients in Protein Folding
• Relativistic r-modes and Shear viscosity: regularizing the continuous spectrum

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Constraints on the symmetry energy and neutron skins from experiments and theory
• Nuclear constraints on properties of neutron star crusts
• Density dependence of the symmetry energy and the nuclear equation of state: A Dynamical and Statistical model perspective
• Formation of Nuclear "Pasta" in Supernovae
• Why is Tin so soft?
• Deconfinement Phase Transition in Compact Stars : Maxwell vs. Gibbs Construction of the Mixed Phase
• Selecting microscopic Equations of State
• Topological characterization of neutron star crusts
• Anomalous thermodynamics and phase transitions of neutron-star matter
• Relevance of equilibrium in multifragmentation
• Nuclear matter equation of state from a quark-model nucleon-nucleon interaction
• Nuclei embedded in an electron gas
• Inhomogeneity growth in two-component fermionic systems