(<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>,π<Superscript>±</Superscript>) correlations in central heavy-ion collisions at 1 ÷ 2 AGeV

The proton–charged pion correlated emission is studied in the reactions Au (1.06 AGeV) + Au, Ni (1.06 and 1.93 AGeV) + Ni and Ni (1.97 AGeV) + Cu within the BUU approach. The associated invariant mass distributions are shifted to smaller energies with respect to the free Δ(1232) mass distribution due to kinematical reasons. We find that the existing and partly conflicting experimental data do not allow to draw definite conclusions on the in-medium modification of the Δ(1232). Received: 18 October 1999 / Revised version: 4 February 2000     

Production of charged pions, kaons and antikaons in relativistic C + C and C + Au collisions

Production cross-sections of charged pions, kaons and antikaons have been measured in C+C and C+Au collisions at beam energies of 1.0 and 1.8 AGeV for different polar emission angles. The kaon and antikaon energy spectra can be described by Boltzmann distributions whereas the pion spectra exhibit an additional enhancement at low energies. The pion multiplicity per participating nucleon M(π⁺)/<A _part> is a factor of about 3 smaller in C+Au than in C+C collisions at 1.0 AGeV whereas it differs only little for the C and the Au target at a beam energy of 1.8 AGeV. The K⁺ multiplicities per participating nucleon M(K⁺)/ <A _part> are independent of the target size at 1 AGeV and at 1.8 AGeV. The K^- multiplicity per participating nucleon M(K^-)/ <A _part> is reduced by a factor of about 2 in C+Au as compared to C+C collisions at 1.8 AGeV. This effect might be caused by the absorption of antikaons in the heavy target nucleus. Transport model calculations underestimate the K^-/K⁺ ratio for C+C collisions at 1.8 AGeV by a factor of about 4 if in-medium modifications of K-mesons are neglected. Received: 10 December 1999 / Accepted: 14 November 2000     

Direct comparison of phase-space distributions of K- and K+ mesons in heavy-ion collisions at SIS energies -- evidence for in-medium modifications of kaons?

The ratio of K^- to K⁺-meson yields has been measured in the systems ⁹⁶Ru + ⁹⁶Ru at 1.69 A GeV, ⁹⁶Ru+⁹⁶Zr at 1.69 A GeV, and ⁵⁸Ni+⁵⁸Ni at 1.93 A GeV incident beam kinetic energy. The yield ratio is observed to vary across the measured phase space. Relativistic transport-model calculations indicate that the data are best understood if in-medium modifications of the kaons are taken into account. Received: 30 November 1998 / Accepted: 20 December 2000     

Pulsed laser photothermal annealing and ablation of plasmonic nanoparticles

Within a transport code simulation for heavy-ion collisions at bombarding energies around 1 AGeV, we demonstrate that double-differential di-electron spectra with suitable kinematical cuts are useful to isolate (i) the ρ meson peak even in case of strong broadening, and (ii) the in-medium ω decay contribution. The expected in-medium modifications of the vector meson spectral densities can thus be probed in this energy range via the di-electron channel.     

Kaon production in hadronic matter

Subthreshold kaon production has been studied in symmetric nucleus-nucleus collisions as a function of the nucleus mass, beam energy and centrality. In Au+Au collsions at 1 AGeV theK ⁺ multiplicity increases more than linearly with increasing number of participating nucleons. Transport calculations have to assume a soft equation of state in order to reproduce the data. The in-mediumK ^? cross section measured in Ni+Ni collisions is enhanced by about a factor of 7 as compared to the free cross section when using theK ⁺ cross section at equivalent beam energies as a normalization.     

Abundance of Δ resonances in 58Ni + 58Ni collisions between 1 and 2 AGeV

Charged pion spectra measured in ⁵⁸Ni⁵⁸Ni collisions at 1.06, 1.45 and 1.93 AGeV are interpreted in terms of a thermal model including the decay of Δ resonances. The transverse momentum spectra of pions are well reproduced by adding the pions originating from the Δ -resonance decay to the component of thermal pions, deduced from the high transverse momentum part of the pion spectra. About 10 and 18% of the nucleons are excited to Δ states at freeze-out for beam energies of 1 and 2 AGeV, respectively.     

In-medium effects on phase space distributions of antikaons measured in proton-nucleus collisions

Differential production cross sections of K+/- mesons have been measured in p + C and p + Au collisions at 1.6, 2.5, and 3.5 GeV proton beam energy. At beam energies close to the production threshold, the K- multiplicity is strongly enhanced with respect to proton-proton collisions. According to microscopic transport calculations, this enhancement is caused by two effects: the strangeness exchange reaction NY --> K- NN and an attractive in-medium K- N potential at saturation density.     

Charged pions from Ni on Ni collisions between 1 and 2 AGeV

Charged pions from Ni + Ni reactions at 1.05, 1.45 and 1.93 AGeV are measured with the FOPI detector. The mean π^± multiplicities per mean number of participants increase with beam energy, in accordance with earlier studies of the Ar + KCl and La + La systems. The pion kinetic energy spectra have concave shape and are fitted by the superposition of two Boltzmann distributions with different temperatures. These apparent temperatures depend only weakly on bombarding energy. The pion angular distributions show a forward/backward enhancement at all energies, but not the Θ = 90⁰ enhancement which was observed in case of the Au + Au system. These features also determine the rapidity distributions which are therefore in disagreement with the hypothesis of one thermal source. The importance of the Coulomb interaction and of the pion rescattering by spectator matter in producing these phenomena is discussed.     

Dependence of flow observables in heavy-ion collisions on the symmetry energy and the in-medium nucleon-nucleon interaction

We employ a QMD transport model to study the influence of the isospin dependent part of the nuclear matter equation of state on the dynamics of heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies. Parametrization of the in-medium dependence of the nucleon-nucleon elastic cross-sections, as predicted by microscopical models, are used. The sensitivity of flow observables to various parametrizations of the isospin dependent part of the equation of state (symmetry energy) is studied. The experimentally observed splitting of the elliptic flow values in Ru+Zr and Zr+Ru at incident energies of 400 MeV is shown to be due to, to an equal extent, density dependence of the microscopic nucleon-nucleon cross-section and symmetry energy.     

Enhanced production of low-mass electron-positron pairs in 40-AGeV Pb-Au collisions at the CERN SPS

We report on first measurements of low-mass electron-positron pairs in Pb-Au collisions at the CERN SPS beam energy of 40 AGeV. The observed pair yield integrated over the range of invariant masses 0.2e(+)e(-) annihilation with a modified rho propagator. They may be linked to chiral symmetry restoration and support the notion that the in-medium modifications of the rho are more driven by baryon density than by temperature.     

Isospin equilibration in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We study the mixing and the kinetic equilibration of projectile and target nucleons in relativistic heavy-ion collisions in the energy regime between 150 AMeV and 2 AGeV in a coupled-channel BUU (CBUU) approach. We find that equilibrium in the projectile-target degrees of freedom is in general not reached even for large systems at low energy where elastic nucleon-nucleon collisions dominate. Inelastic nucleon excitations are more favorable for equilibration and their relative abundance increases both with energy and mass. Experimentally, the projectile/target admixture can be determined by measuring the degree of isospin equilibration in isospin asymmetric nuclear collisions. For one of the most promising systems currently under investigation, ⁹⁶ ₄₄Ru +⁹⁶ ₄₀Zr, we investigate the influence of the equation of state and the inelastic in-medium cross section. Received: 23 September 1998 / Revised version: 3 December 1998     

The influence of Isospin Dependence of In-Medium NN Cross Sections on the Ratio of Emitted Neutrons to Protons in HICs

The influence of isospin dependence of in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections on the nip ratios for emitted nucleons in reactions 96Zr-j-96Zr and 96Ru-j-96RH at Eb z 400 AMeV is investigated by means of an improved quantum molecular dynamics model. Our results show that the high energy part of the spectra of the n//p ratios for emitted nucleons is sensitive to the isospin dependence of in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections for neutron-rich reaction systems. Therefore, we propose that the nip ratio of emitted high energy nucleons in a very neutron-rich reaction system at several hundreds of AMeV can be taken as sensitive observables to constrain the isospindependence of in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections.     

In-Medium Kaon Potential and Nuclear Equation of State Measured in Nucleus–Nucleus Collisions

The kaon production in heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies provides a sensitive probe to study the in-medium properties and nuclear equation of state of hadrons. Properties of kaons in dense hadronic matter are important for a better understanding of both, the possible restoration of chiral symmetry in dense hadronic matter and the properties of nuclear matter at high densities. We investigated the in-medium kaon potential and nuclear equation of state by transverse mass spectra of K ⁺ mesons in heavy ion collisions. We use quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) models based on covariant kaon dynamics to simulate ${_{28}^{58}Ni +_{28}^{58}Ni}$ collisions at 1.93 A GeV, to analyze the transverse mass spectra of K ⁺. Calculated results with a repulsive in-medium K ⁺N potential can reasonably describe the features of KaoS data. They also shown that the transverse mass spectrum of K ⁺ mesons is a sensitive observable to probe the kaon in-medium potential in dense nuclear matter.     

Learning about the nuclear equation of state using flow

We present results for transverse flow, the balance energy, and elliptic flow for Ar+Sc, ⁵⁸Fe+⁵⁸Fe, ⁵⁸Ni+⁵⁸Ni, Kr+Nb, and Au+Au. We find that a soft equation of state is required to explain these results. We find that a momentum dependent formulation of the nuclear mean field is required. A 30% density dependent reduction of the in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections in BUU is required to reproduce the observed balance energies for light systems.     

Dilepton production at SIS energies

In this short review the results of detailed studies for dilepton production from p+A andA+A reactions at SIS energies are presented. The calculations are based on a semi-classical BUU transport model that includes the off-shell propagation of vector mesons and evaluates the width of the vector mesons dynamically. Different scenarios of in-medium modifications of vector mesons, such as collisional broadening and dropping vector meson masses, are investigated and the possibilities for an experimental observation of in-medium effects in p+A reactions at 1–4 GeV are discussed for a variety of nuclear targets.     

Influence of In-medium properties of vector mesons on dilepton production in heavy ion collisions at SIS energies

Dileptons represent a unique probe for nuclear matter under extreme conditions reached in heavy ion collisions. They allow the study of meson properties, like mass and decay width, at various density and temperature regimes. Up to now, in the Tübingen model for dilepton production, modification of meson properties in nuclear medium has been accounted for by allowing a density dependence of the mass (Brown–Rho scaling) together with an ad hoc dependence of the meson decay widths on the same variable. We use the extended vector meson dominance (eVMD) model to extract meson properties in nuclear matter by computing the in-medium meson spectral functions. Dilepton spectra for C+C at 1.0 and 2.0 AGeV are calculated and compared with previous results.     

Two-proton small-angle correlations in central heavy-ion collisions: A beam-energy- and system-size-dependent study

Small-angle correlations of pairs of protons emitted in central collisions of Ca + Ca, Ru + Ru and Au + Au at beam energies from 400 to 1500MeV per nucleon are investigated with the FOPI detector system at SIS/GSI Darmstadt. Dependences on system size and beam energy are presented which extend the experimental data basis of pp correlations in the SIS energy range substantially. The size of the proton-emitting source is estimated by comparing the experimental data with the output of a final-state interaction model which utilizes either static Gaussian sources or the one-body phase-space distribution of protons provided by the BUU transport approach. The trends in the experimental data, i.e. system size and beam energy dependences, are well reproduced by this hybrid model. However, the pp correlation function is found rather insensitive to the stiffness of the equation of state entering the transport model calculations.     

The level structure of92Ru up to high spin values

The level structure of⁹²Ru has been studied by means of γ-ray spectroscopy. The nucleus was produced by the⁵⁸Ni(⁴⁰Ca, α2p)⁹²Ru reaction at beam energies of 147 and 187 MeV. The NORDBALL detector system including particle selection was used. A large number of new levels with excitation energies up to 11.3 MeV and spin values up to 22 or 23 units of angular momentum have been established. The level scheme is compared with recent shell model calculations using¹⁰⁰Sn as a core. Some systematics of the g ₉ ^2/?2 configuration is discussed and a strong correlation between the levels in⁹⁰Mo and⁹²Ru is found.     

Strong signal of dynamical long-range correlation among target fragments in relativistic and ultra-relativistic nuclear interactions

This paper reports an investigation on the two-particle long-range angular correlation among the target fragments produced in ²⁸Si–AgBr interactions at 14.5 AGeV, ¹⁶O–AgBr interactions at 60 AGeV and ³²S–AgBr interactions at 200 AGeV. The experimental data have been compared with Monte Carlo simulated events to extract dynamical correlation. The data exhibit two-particle long-range correlation in emission angle space at all energies.