Triton-$^3$He relative and differential flows as probes of the nuclear symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities

TL;DR

This study investigates how the triton-$^3$He ratio and their flow patterns in heavy-ion collisions can serve as sensitive probes for the density dependence of nuclear symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities.

Contribution

It introduces the use of triton-$^3$He relative and differential flows as novel observables to probe high-density nuclear symmetry energy, demonstrating their sensitivity compared to traditional methods.

Findings

Triton-$^3$He flows are sensitive to the symmetry energy at high densities.

The t-$^3$He relative flow is a more powerful probe than the $ ext{pi}^-/ ext{pi}^+$ ratio.

Nuclear symmetry energy significantly influences the flow observables.

Abstract

Using a transport model coupled with a phase-space coalescence after-burner we study the triton-$^3$He ratio, relative and differential transverse flows in semi-central $^{132}Sn+^{124}Sn$ reactions at a beam energy of 400 MeV/A. The neutron-proton ratio, relative and differential flows are also discussed as a reference. We find that similar to the neutron-proton pairs the triton-$^3$He pairs also carry interesting information about the density dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy. Moreover, the nuclear symmetry energy affects more strongly the t-$^3$He relative and differential flows than the $\pi^-/\pi^+$ ratio in the same reaction. The t-$^3$He relative flow can be used as a particularly powerful probe of the high-density behavior of the nuclear symmetry energy.