Particle production and equilibrium properties within a new hadron transport approach for heavy-ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper introduces SMASH, a new hadronic transport model for simulating low-energy heavy-ion collisions, validating it against experimental data and exploring particle production and equilibrium properties.

Contribution

The paper presents the development and validation of SMASH, a novel microscopic hadronic transport approach for studying particle production in heavy-ion reactions at low energies.

Findings

SMASH accurately reproduces elementary cross sections.

The model describes equilibrium properties like detailed balance.

Predictions for pion and proton production match experimental data.

Abstract

The microscopic description of heavy-ion reactions at low beam energies is achieved within hadronic transport approaches. In this article a new approach SMASH (Simulating Many Accelerated Strongly-interacting Hadrons) is introduced and applied to study the production of non-strange particles in heavy-ion reactions at $E_{\rm kin}=0.4-2A$ GeV. First, the model is described including details about the collision criterion, the initial conditions and the resonance formation and decays. To validate the approach, equilibrium properties such as detailed balance are presented and the results are compared to experimental data for elementary cross sections. Finally results for pion and proton production in C+C and Au+Au collisions is confronted with HADES and FOPI data. Predictions for particle production in $\pi+A$ collisions are made.