Triton-He-3 relative and differential flows as probes of the nuclear symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities

Using a transport model coupled with a phase-space coalescence afterburner, we study the triton-He-3 (t-He-3) ratio with both relative and differential transverse flows in semicentral Sn-132 + Sn-124 reactions at a beam energy of 400 MeV/nucleon. The neutron-proton ratios with relative and differential flows are also discussed as a reference. We find that similar to the neutron-proton pairs, the t-He-3 pairs also carry interesting information regarding the density dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy. Moreover, the nuclear symmetry energy affects more strongly the t-He-3 relative and differential flows than the pi(-)/pi(+) ratio in the same reaction. The t-He-3 relative flow can be used as a particularly powerful probe of the high-density behavior of the nuclear symmetry energy.

US National Science Foundation PHY-0652548 PHY-0757839 Research Corporation 7123 Texas Coordinating Board of Higher Education 003565-0004-2007 National Natural Science Foundation of China 10710172 10575119 10675082 10975097 MOE of China NCET-05-0392 Shanghai Rising-Star Program 06QA14024 SRF SEM of China National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) 2007CB815004