Medium effects on charged pion ratio in heavy ion collisions

We have recently studied in the delta-resonance--nucleon-hole model the dependence of the pion spectral function in hot dense asymmetric nuclear matter on the charge of the pion due to the pion p-wave interaction in nuclear medium. In a thermal model, this isospin-dependent effect enhances the ratio of negatively charged to positively charged pions in neutron-rich nuclear matter, and the effect is comparable to that due to the uncertainties in the theoretically predicted stiffness of nuclear symmetry energy at high densities. This effect is, however, reversed if we also take into account the s-wave interaction of the pion in nuclear medium as given by chiral perturbation theory, resulting instead in a slightly reduced ratio of negatively charged to positively charged pions. Relevance of our results to the determination of the nuclear symmetry energy from the ratio of negatively to positively charged pions produced in heavy ion collisions is discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, contribution to The International Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics in Heavy-Ion Reactions and the Symmetry Energy (IWND2009), Shanghai, China, 22-25 August, 200

Nucleon Effective Masses in Neutron-Rich Matter

Various kinds of isovector nucleon effective masses are used in the literature to characterize the momentum/energy dependence of the nucleon symmetry potential or self-energy due to the space/time non-locality of the underlying isovector strong interaction in neutron-rich nucleonic matter. The multifaceted studies on nucleon isovector effective masses are multi-disciplinary in nature. Besides structures, masses and low-lying excited states of nuclei as well as nuclear reactions, studies of the isospin dependence of short-range correlations in nuclei from scatterings of high-energy electrons and protons on heavy nuclei also help understand nucleon effective masses especially the so-called E-mass in neutron-rich matter. A thorough understanding of all kinds of nucleon effective masses has multiple impacts on many interesting issues in both nuclear physics and astrophysics. We review some of the significant progresses made in recent years by the nuclear physics community in resolving some of the hotly debated and longstanding issues regarding nucleon effective masses especially in dense neutron-rich matter.Comment: 109 pages, Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics (2018) in pres

Disentangling effects of collision geometry and symmetry energy in U+U collisions

Effects of the collision geometry on experimental observables that are known to be sensitive to the high-density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy are examined in U+U collisions at 0.52 GeV/nucleon using an isospin- and momentum-dependent interaction within the framework of IBUU transport model. It is found that the neutron-proton differential flow in tip-tip collisions and the difference of neutron and proton elliptic flow in body-body collisions are more sensitive to the symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities compared with collisions of spherical nuclei of the same masses. In addition, the n/p ratio of pre-equilibrium nucleons is found to be slightly more sensitive to the symmetry energy in tip-tip collisions, and the collision geometry affects the \pi^-/\pi^+ ratio significantly.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables, minor modification

Temperature effects on the nuclear symmetry energy and symmetry free energy with an isospin and momentum dependent interaction

Within a self-consistent thermal model using an isospin and momentum dependent interaction (MDI) constrained by the isospin diffusion data in heavy-ion collisions, we investigate the temperature dependence of the symmetry energy $E_{sym}(\rho, T)$ and symmetry free energy $F_{sym}(\rho, T)$ for hot, isospin asymmetric nuclear matter. It is shown that the symmetry energy $E_{sym}(\rho, T)$ generally decreases with increasing temperature while the symmetry free energy $F_{sym}(\rho, T)$ exhibits opposite temperature dependence. The decrement of the symmetry energy with temperature is essentially due to the decrement of the potential energy part of the symmetry energy with temperature. The difference between the symmetry energy and symmetry free energy is found to be quite small around the saturation density of nuclear matter. While at very low densities, they differ significantly from each other. In comparison with the experimental data of temperature dependent symmetry energy extracted from the isotopic scaling analysis of intermediate mass fragments (IMF's) in heavy-ion collisions, the resulting density and temperature dependent symmetry energy $E_{sym}(\rho, T)$ is then used to estimate the average freeze-out density of the IMF's.used to estimate the average freeze-out density of the IMF's.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 1 figure added to show the temperature dependence of the potential and kinetic parts of the symmetry energy. Revised version to appear in PR