Elliptic flow and the symmetry energy at supra-saturation density

Abstract

The elliptic flow in collisions of neutron-rich heavy-ion systems at intermediate energies emerges as an observable sensitive to the strength of the symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities. First results obtained by comparing ratios or differences of neutron and hydrogen flows with predictions of transport models favor a moderately soft to linear density dependence, consistent with ab-initio nuclear-matter theories. Comprehensive data sets of high accuracy can be expected to improve our knowledge of the equation of state of asymmetric nuclear matter.