Mass-splitting effect on flows in heavy-ion collisions in the Fermi-energy domain

Abstract

In this work, based on one updated version of the ultrarelativistic quantum molecular dynamics (UrQMD) model in which the Skyrme-like (parabolic) isospin- and momentum-dependent interaction is included, the effect of the neutron-proton effective mass splitting (NPEMS) on flows in heavy-ion collisions at the Fermi-energy domain (between 40 and 100 MeV/nucleon) is focused. Using various Skyrme interactions (all exhibiting similar values of isoscalar incompressibility but very different NPEMS), both rapidity- and transverse-momentum-dependent directed and elliptic flows of free neutrons and protons are calculated. Our calculations show that the effect of NPEMS on the flows of free nucleons is more obvious at ${E}_{\mathrm{lab}}=100\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{MeV}/\mathrm{nucleon}$ than at $40 \mathrm{MeV}/\mathrm{nucleon}$. At ${E}_{\mathrm{lab}}=100\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{MeV}/\mathrm{nucleon}$, the directed flows of both neutrons and protons are easily affected by the NPEMS, while the elliptic flow of protons is not very sensitive to the NPEMS at both energies. It is suggested that the directed flow is better than the elliptic flow for probing the NPEMS.