Parton Hadron Quantum Molecular Dynamics (PHQMD)—A Novel Microscopic N-Body Transport Approach For Heavy-Ion Dynamics and Hypernuclei Production

Abstract

We present the novel microscopic n-body dynamical transport approach PHQMD (Parton-Hadron-Quantum-Molecular-Dynamics) for the description of particle production and cluster formation in heavy-ion reactions at relativistic energies. The PHQMD extends the established PHSD (Parton-Hadron-String-Dynamics) transport approach by replacing the mean field by density dependent two body interactions in a similar way as in the Quantum Molecular Dynamics (QMD) models. This allows for the calculation of the time evolution of the n-body Wigner density and therefore for a dynamical description of clusters and hypernuclei formation. The clusters are identified with the MST (Minimum Spanning Tree) or the SACA (‘Simulated Annealing Cluster Algorithm’) algorithm which—by regrouping the nucleons in single nucleons and noninteracting clusters—generates the most bound configuration of nucleons and clusters. Collisions among particles in PHQMD are treated in the same way as in PHSD. In [1] we presented the first results from the PHQMD for general ‘bulk’ observables such as rapidity distributions and transverse mass spectra for hadrons as well as for clusters production, including hypernuclei, at SIS and FAIR/NICA/BES RHIC energies. The selected results on clusters and hypernuclei production from [1] are discussed in this contribution.