Isospin effects and symmetry energy studies with INDRA

The equation of state of asymmetric nuclear matter is still controversial, as predictions at subsaturation as well as above normal density widely diverge. We discuss several experimental results measured in heavy-ion collisions with the INDRA array in the incident energy range 5-80 MeV/nucleon. In particular an estimate of the density dependence of the symmetry energy is derived from isospin diffusion results compared with a transport code: the potential part of the symmetry energy linearly increases with the density. We demonstrate that isospin equilibrium is reached in mid-central collisions for the two reactions Ni+Au at 52 MeV/nucleon and Xe+Sn at 32 MeV/nucleon. New possible variables and an improved modelization to investigate symmetry energy are discussed.Comment: Review for the special issue of EPJA on symmetry energy. 20 pages, 16 figure

Decay competition for IMF produced in the collisions 78Kr+40Ca and 86Kr+48Ca at 10 A.MeV

Decay modes of excited compound systems 118Ba and 134Ba, produced respectively in the 78Kr+40Ca and 86Kr+48Ca collisions at 10 A·MeV, are investigated. In particular, the competition between the various disintegration path of medium mass compound nuclei, formed by fusion processes, the production of the so referred Intermediate Mass Fragments (IMF), and the isospin dependence of the decay process are studied. Data were taken at the INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS) by using the CHIMERA array. Data analysis is in progress; a first indication on the average-energy angular distributions suggests pre-equilibrium effects affecting the data and the presence of isotopical effects

What can be learned from heavy-ion central collisions around the Fermi energy

XL Bormi

Strong enhancement of dynamical emission of heavy fragments in the neutron-rich 124Sn+64Ni reaction at 35A MeV

A quantitative comparison is made between the absolute cross sections associated with statistical and dynamical emission of heavy fragments in the 124Sn+64Ni and 112Sn+58Ni collisions experimentally investigated at 35A MeV beam energy using the multidetector CHIMERA. The result shows that the dynamical process is about twice as probable in the neutron-rich 124Sn+64Ni system as in the 112Sn+58Ni neutron-poor one. This unexpected and significant difference indicates that the reaction mechanism is strongly dependent on the entrance-channel isospin (N/Z) content