Hadronic and electromagnetic probes of hot and dense nuclear matter

▪ Abstract We provide an overview of collective flow phenomena observed in heavy ion collisions from the Fermi energy range up to CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) energies. We summarize the experimental data in terms of the various observed aspects of flow, namely directed flow in the reaction plane, elliptic flow in- and out-of-plane, and azimuthally symmetric radial flow originating from the expansion of the hot and compressed reaction zone. Also reviewed are the theoretical concepts developed to simulate the complex reactions with the aim of extracting fundamental properties of hot and compressed nuclear matter.

Collective flow in heavy-ion collisions

The nuclear symmetry energy

Nucleon and hadron structure changes in the nuclear medium and the impact on observables

Systematics of pion emission in heavy ion collisions in the 1 A GeV regime

Particles with strange quark content produced in the system 1.93A·GeV58Ni on58Ni have been investigated at GSI Darmstadt with the FOPI detector system. The correlation of these produced particles was analyzed with respect to the reaction plane.Λ baryons exhibit a very pronounced sideward flow pattern which is qualitatively similar to the proton flow. However, the kaon (K
+,K

 s
 0
 ) flow patterns are significantly different from that of the protons, and their form may be useful to restrict theoretical models on the form of the kaon potential in the nuclear medium.

D. Lambrecht

Papers

On the transverse momentum distribution of strange hadrons produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions

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