Dynamics of pion production in heavy-ion collisions around 1A GeV energies

TL;DR

This paper uses the ImIQMD model to study pion production in heavy-ion collisions around 1A GeV, exploring how nuclear symmetry energy influences pion yields and flow patterns, providing insights into nuclear matter at high densities.

Contribution

It systematically investigates the effects of symmetry energy, Coulomb, and in-medium potentials on pion production and flow in heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies.

Findings

Pion multiplicities vary with symmetry energy stiffness.

The $ ext{π}^{-}/ ext{π}^{+}$ ratio is sensitive to symmetry energy.

Flow patterns depend on collision centrality and symmetry energy.

Abstract

Within the framework of the improved isospin dependent quantum molecular dynamics (ImIQMD) model, the dynamics of pion emission in heavy-ion collisions in the region 1 A GeV as a probe of nuclear symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities is investigated systematically. The total pion multiplicities and the $\pi^{-}/\pi^{+}$ yields are calculated for selected Skyrme parameters SkP, SLy6, Ska and SIII, and also for the cases of different stiffness of symmetry energy with the parameter SLy6. The influence of Coulomb potential, symmetry energy and in-medium pion potential on the pion production is investigated and compared each other by analyzing the distributions of transverse momentum and longitudinal rapidity and also the excitation functions of the total pion and the $\pi^{-}/\pi^{+}$ ratio. The directed flow, elliptic flow and polar angle distributions are calculated at the cases of different collision centralities and symmetry energies.