1210.0158 (Jun Xu et al.)

Probing in-medium spin-orbit potential with intermediate-energy
heavy-ion collisions    [PDF]

Jun Xu, Bao-An Li

Incorporating for the first time both the spin and isospin degrees of freedom explicitly in transport model simulations of heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies, we observe that a strong local spin polarization appears in the early stage of the reaction. Most interestingly, it is found that the nucleon spin up-down differential transverse flow is a sensitive probe of the spin-orbit potential independent of its tensor terms, providing a novel approach to probe both the density and isospin dependence of the in-medium spin-orbit coupling that is important for understanding the structure of rare isotopes and synthesis of superheavy elements.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.0158