Isospin Diffusion in Heavy-Ion Collisions and the Neutron Skin Thickness of Lead.pdf

a r X i v : n u c l - t h / 0 5 0 5 0 5 1 v 2 1 2 O c t 2 0 0 5 Isospin Diffusion in Heavy-Ion Collisions and the Neutron Skin Thickness of Lead Andrew W. Steiner1 and Bao-An Li2 1Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA 2Department of Chemistry and Physics, P.O. Box 419, Arkansas State University, State University, Arkansas, 72467-0419, USA The correlation between the thickness of the neutron skin in 208Pb, and the degree of isospin diffusion in heavy-ion collisions is examined. The same equation of state is used to compute the degree of isospin diffusion in an isospin-depedent transport model and the neutron skin thickness in the Hartree-Fock approximation. We find that skin thicknesses less than 0.15 fm are excluded by the isospin diffusion data. PACS numbers: 25.70.-z, 21.30.Fe, 21.10.Gv, 24.10.Lx I. INTRODUCTION The nuclear symmetry energy and its dependence on density holds a unique place in nuclear physics and as- trophysics. It is an essential ingredient in understanding many aspects of nuclear physics, from heavy-ion collisions to nuclear structure, and astrophysics, from supernovae and neutron stars to r-process nucleosynthesis (for a re- cent review see Ref. [1]). At the same time, the nuclear symmetry energy is relatively uncertain; it is known to within only about 5 MeV at saturation density (com- pared to the binding energy which is known to within 1 MeV). The density dependence of the nuclear symme- try energy at both sub-saturation and super-saturation densities is very poorly known. The symmetry energy is also an important quantity in determining the compressibility of matter. The in- compressibility K0 of symmetric nuclear matter at its saturation density ρ0 = 0.16 fm ?3 has been determined to be 231 ± 5 MeV from nuclear giant monopole reso- nances [2] and the equation of state (EOS) at densities of 2ρ0 ρ 5ρ0 has been constrained by measurements of collective flows [3, 4, 5, 6, 7] in relativistic heavy-