The PHQMD model for the formation of nuclear clusters and hypernuclei in heavy-ion collisions

TL;DR

The paper introduces PHQMD, a novel n-body dynamical transport model for simulating nuclear cluster and hypernuclei formation in heavy-ion collisions, extending existing approaches with quantum molecular dynamics and clusterization algorithms.

Contribution

The paper presents the PHQMD model, combining quantum molecular dynamics with clusterization algorithms, to improve understanding of hypernuclei formation in heavy-ion collisions.

Findings

First results on strange hadron production rates

Sensitivity analysis of equation of state effects

Study of cluster and hypernuclei formation at NICA energies

Abstract

Modeling of the process of the formation of nuclear clusters in the hot nuclear matter is a challenging task. We present the novel n-body dynamical transport approach - PHQMD (Parton-Hadron-Quantum-Molecular Dynamics) [1] for the description of heavy-ion collisions as well as clusters and hpernuclei formation. The PHQMD extends well established PHSD (Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics) approach - which incorporates explicit partonic degrees-of-freedom (quarks and gluons), an equation-of-state from lattice QCD, as well as dynamical hadronization and hadronic elastic and inelastic collisions in the final reaction phase, by n-body quantum molecular dynamic propagation of hadrons which allows choosing of the equation of state with different compression modulus. The formation of clusters, including hypernuclei, is realized by incorporation the Simulated Annealing Clusterization Algorithm (SACA). We present first results from PHQMD on the study of the production rates of strange hadrons, nuclear clusters and hypernuclei in e1elementary and heavy-ion collisions at NICA energies. In particular, sensitivity on the "hard" and "soft" equation of state within the PHQMD model was investigated for "bulk" observables.