Model dependence of elliptic flow differences

Abstract

An isospin dependent version of the QMD transport model is used to study the influence of the isovector part of the equation of state of nuclear matter on observables that can be measured in heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energy. The model dependence of neutron-proton elliptic flow difference is studied for AuAu collisions at an incident energy of 400 MeV per nucleon. It is found that the sensitivity to microscopical nucleon-nucleon cross-sections, momentum dependence of the optical potential, compressibility modulus of nuclear matter and width of nucleon wave function are moderate compared to the dependence on the stiffness of the isospin asymmetric part of the equation of state. It is concluded that neutron-proton elliptic flow difference is a suitable observable for setting constraints on the supra-saturation density dependence of symmetry energy.