Probing in-medium spin-orbit potential with intermediate-energy heavy-ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel transport model simulation that explicitly includes spin and isospin degrees of freedom, revealing that nucleon spin polarization and differential flow can probe in-medium spin-orbit interactions in heavy-ion collisions.

Contribution

It is the first to explicitly incorporate both spin and isospin in transport models, demonstrating the sensitivity of nucleon spin flow to in-medium spin-orbit coupling.

Findings

Local spin polarization appears during collisions.

Nucleon spin up-down differential transverse flow probes spin-orbit interaction.

Provides a new method to study density and isospin dependence of spin-orbit coupling.

Abstract

Incorporating for the first time both the spin and isospin degrees of freedom explicitly in transport model simulations of intermediate-energy heavy-ion collisions, we observe that a local spin polarization appears during collision process. Most interestingly, it is found that the nucleon spin up-down differential transverse flow is a sensitive probe of the spin-orbit interaction, providing a novel approach to probe both the density and isospin dependence of the in-medium spin-orbit coupling that is important for understanding the structure of rare isotopes and synthesis of superheavy elements.