Symmetry Energy from Multifragmentation

EasyChair Preprint no. 1812

Abstract

Computational approaches such as Monte Carlo enjoys a special status in Molecular dynamics simulations in Nuclear Physics. Heavy-ion reactions at intermediate energies are simulated using such techniques where phase space of nucleons of colliding nuclei is generated. The final obtained phase space is then fed into various after burners to investigate various phenomena of heavy-ion collisions such as nuclear fragmentation, collective flow, nuclear stopping etc. We will shed light on some aspects of nuclear fragmentation etc. One of the major goals of present-day nuclear physics research at intermediate energies is to study the behavior of nuclear symmetry energy. The knowledge of nuclear symmetry energy is important to have better understanding of equation of state of nuclear matter which can help in determining various aspects of astrophysical phenomena of supernova explosions, neutron stars etc. We will use nuclear multifragmentation as a probe to investigate the behavior of nuclear symmetry energy. Using molecular dynamics approach based on MC simulations, a study on the fragmentation of various colliding nuclei (isotopes/isobars etc.) is presented. During nuclear fragmentation, variety of different mass fragments (such as light charged particles, medium/heavy/intermediate mass fragments) as well as free particles are emitted. The yield of such particles/fragments is studied in detail and it was observed that relative yield of light charged particles act as wonderful probe of nuclear symmetry energy. Such different mass fragments are further divided into gas/liquid content. This gas/liquid content changes with the beam energy and at a particular energy the contribution of both the phases become equal. The energy at which this happens is termed as cross over energy and found to be sensitive to symmetry energy. This detailed analysis thus indicated that fragmentation can be explored to pin down the nuclear equation of state of asymmetric nuclear matter.

Keyphrases: heavy-ion collisions, Multifragmentation, Nuclear symmetry energy

@Booklet{EasyChair:1812,
  author = {Sakshi Gautam and Mandeep Kaur and Preeti Bansal},
  title = {Symmetry Energy from Multifragmentation},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 1812},

  year = {EasyChair, 2019}}