Competition between Coulomb and Symmetry Potential in Semi-peripheral Heavy-ion Collisions

The anisotropy of angular distributions of emitted nucleons and light charged particles for the asymmetric reaction system, $^{40}$Ar+$^{197}$Au, at b=6fm and $E_{beam}$=35, 50 and 100MeV/u, are investigated by using the Improved Quantum Molecular Dynamics model. The competition between the symmetry potential and Coulomb potential shows large impacts on the nucleons and light charged particles emission in projectile and target region. As a result of this competition, the angular distribution anisotropy of coalescence invariant Y(n)/Y(p) ratio at forward regions shows sensitivity to the stiffness of symmetry energy as well as the value of Y(n)/Y(p). This observable can be further checked against experimental data to understand the reaction mechanism and to extract information about the symmetry energy at subsaturation densities.

Circumstantial evidence for a soft nuclear symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities

Within an isospin- and momentum-dependent hadronic transport model it is shown that the recent FOPI data on the $pi^-/pi^+$ ratio in central heavy-ion collisions at SIS/GSI energies (Willy Reisdorf {it et al.}, NPA {bf 781}, 459 (2007)) provide circumstantial evidence suggesting a rather soft nuclear symmetry energy esym at $rhogeq 2rho_0$ compared to the Akmal-Pandharipande-Ravenhall prediction. Some astrophysical implications and the need for further experimental confirmations are discussed.