Progress Towards Determining the Density Dependence of the Nuclear Symmetry Energy Using Heavy-Ion Reactions

The latest development in determining the density dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy using heavy-ion collisions is reviewed. Within the IBUU04 version of an isospin- and momentum-dependent transport model using a modified Gogny effective interaction, recent experimental data from NSCL/MSU on isospin diffusion are found to be consistent with a nuclear symmetry energy of $E_{sym}(\rho)\approx 31.6(\rho /\rho_{0})^{1.05}$ at subnormal densities. Predictions on several observables sensitive to the density dependence of the symmetry energy at supranormal densities accessible at GSI and the planned Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) are also made.Comment: 10 pages. Talk given at the 21st Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics, Breckenridge, Colorado, USA, Feb. 5-12, 2005. To appear in Heavy-Ion Physics (2005

Matrix Formula of Differential Resultant for First Order Generic Ordinary Differential Polynomials

In this paper, a matrix representation for the differential resultant of two generic ordinary differential polynomials $f_1$ and $f_2$ in the differential indeterminate $y$ with order one and arbitrary degree is given. That is, a non-singular matrix is constructed such that its determinant contains the differential resultant as a factor. Furthermore, the algebraic sparse resultant of $f_1, f_2, \delta f_1, \delta f_2$ treated as polynomials in $y, y', y"$ is shown to be a non-zero multiple of the differential resultant of $f_1, f_2$. Although very special, this seems to be the first matrix representation for a class of nonlinear generic differential polynomials

Hidden-Markov-Models-Based Dynamic Hand Gesture Recognition

This paper is concerned with the recognition of dynamic hand gestures. A method based on Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) is presented for dynamic gesture trajectory modeling and recognition. Adaboost algorithm is used to detect the user's hand and a contour-based hand tracker is formed combining condensation and partitioned sampling. Cubic B-spline is adopted to approximately fit the trajectory points into a curve. Invariant curve moments as global features and orientation as local features are computed to represent the trajectory of hand gesture. The proposed method can achieve automatic hand gesture online recognition and can successfully reject atypical gestures. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can reach better recognition results than the traditional hand recognition method

Probing nuclear symmetry energy at high densities using pion, kaon, eta and photon productions in heavy-ion collisions

The high-density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy is among the most uncertain properties of dense neutron-rich matter. Its accurate determination has significant ramifications in understanding not only the reaction dynamics of heavy-ion reactions especially those induced by radioactive beams but also many interesting phenomena in astrophysics, such as the explosion mechanism of supernova and the properties of neutron stars. The heavy-ion physics community has devoted much effort during the last few years to constrain the high-density symmetry using various probes. In particular, the pion-/pion+ ratio has been most extensively studied both theoretically and experimentally. All models have consistently predicted qualitatively that the pion-/pion+ ratio is a sensitive probe of the high-density symmetry energy especially with beam energies near the pion production threshold. However, the predicted values of the pion-/pion+ ratio are still quite model dependent mostly because of the complexity of modeling pion production and reabsorption dynamics in heavy-ion collisions, leading to currently still controversial conclusions regarding the high-density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy from comparing various model calculations with available experimental data. As more pion-/pion+ data become available and a deeper understanding about the pion dynamics in heavy-ion reactions is obtained, more penetrating probes, such as the kaon+/kaon0 ratio, eta meson and high energy photons are also being investigated or planned at several facilities. Here, we review some of our recent contributions to the community effort of constraining the high-density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy in heavy-ion collisions. In addition, the status of some worldwide experiments for studying the high-density symmetry energy, including the HIRFL-CSR external target experiment (CEE) are briefly introduced.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, Contribution to the Topical Issue on Nuclear Symmetry Energy in EPJA Special Volum