Isospin effects in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper explores how the Lorentz structure of the symmetry energy affects heavy ion collision dynamics and discusses potential experimental signals to constrain its density dependence.

Contribution

It introduces a relativistic decomposition of the iso-vector mean field, highlighting the impact of the scalar $ ext{delta}$ channel on symmetry energy behavior in collisions.

Findings

The $ ext{delta}$ meson significantly influences the symmetry energy at high densities.

Heavy ion collision observables can provide constraints on the symmetry energy.

Finite nuclei show moderate effects from the $ ext{delta}$ meson.

Abstract

We investigate the density dependence of the symmetry energy in a relativistic description by decomposing the iso-vector mean field into contributions with different Lorentz properties. We find important effects of the iso-vector, scalar $\delta$ channel on the density behavior of the symmetry energy. Finite nuclei studies show only moderate effects originating from the virtual $\delta$ meson. In heavy ion collisions from Fermi to relativistic energies up to $1-2 AGeV$ one finds important contributions on the dynamics arising from the different treatment of the microscopic Lorentz structure of the symmetry energy. We discuss a variety of possible signals which could set constraints on the still unknown density dependence of the symmetry energy, when experimental data will be available. Examples of such observables are isospin collective flow, threshold production of pions and kaons, isospin equilibration and stopping in asymmetric systems like $Au+Au$, $Sn+Sn$ and $Ru(Zr)+Zr(Ru)$.