Many neutron star properties, such as the proton fraction, reflect the symmetry energy contributions to the equation of state that dominate when neutron and proton densities differ strongly. To ...constrain these contributions at suprasaturation densities, we measure the spectra of charged pions produced by colliding rare isotope tin (Sn) beams with isotopically enriched Sn targets. Using ratios of the charged pion spectra measured at high transverse momenta, we deduce the slope of the symmetry energy to be 42<L<117 MeV. This value is slightly lower but consistent with the L values deduced from a recent measurement of the neutron skin thickness of ^{208}Pb.
Efficiency corrected single ratios of neutron and proton spectra in central Sn112+112Sn and Sn124+124Sn collisions at 120 MeV/u are combined with double ratios to provide constraints on the density ...and momentum dependencies of the isovector mean-field potential. Bayesian analyses of these data reveal that the isoscalar and isovector nucleon effective masses, ms⁎−mv⁎ are strongly correlated. The linear correlation observed in ms⁎−mv⁎ yields a nearly independent constraint on the effective mass splitting Δmnp⁎=(mn⁎−mp⁎)/mN=−0.05−0.09+0.09δ. The correlated constraint on the standard symmetry energy, S0 and the slope, L at saturation density yields the values of symmetry energy S(ρs)=16.8−1.2+1.2 MeV at a sensitive density of ρs/ρ0=0.43−0.05+0.05.
Properties of the nuclear equation of state (EoS) can be probed by measuring the dynamical properties of nucleus-nucleus collisions. In this study, we present the directed flow (v1), elliptic flow ...(v2) and stopping (VarXZ) measured in fixed target Sn + Sn collisions at ▪ with the SπRIT Time Projection Chamber. We perform Bayesian analyses in which EoS parameters are varied simultaneously within the Improved Quantum Molecular Dynamics-Skyrme (ImQMD-Sky) transport code to obtain a multivariate correlated constraint. The varied parameters include symmetry energy, S0, and slope of the symmetry energy, L, at saturation density, isoscalar effective mass, ms⁎/mN, isovector effective mass, mv⁎/mN and the in-medium cross-section enhancement factor η. We find that the flow and VarXZ observables are sensitive to the splitting of proton and neutron effective masses and the in-medium cross-section. Comparisons of ImQMD-Sky predictions to the SπRIT data suggest a narrow range of preferred values for ms⁎/mN, mv⁎/mN and η.
The rapidity distributions of hydrogen isotopes emitted from central collisions of neutron-rich 132Sn+124Sn and neutron-deficient 108Sn+112Sn systems at 270 MeV/nucleon were investigated at ...RIKEN-RIBF. The data are compared with antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD) calculations and the rapidity distributions can be reproduced after adjusting the in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections. The double ratios between the two reaction systems taken for the relative yields of deuteron to proton (d/p) and triton to proton (t/p) are further examined in the midrapidity domain, where the adjustments in the AMD calculations do not affect much on them. The d/p and t/p double ratios at midrapidity agree well with the ratio of the system neutron numbers and its squared value, respectively, and the rapidity dependence of these double ratios is consistent with a picture of partial mixing of colliding nuclei. By comparing with the AMD model which shows a strong symmetry energy dependence of the t/p double ratio, the experimental result in the midrapidity domain favors the calculation with a symmetry-energy slope parameter around L=46 MeV rather than L=108 MeV.
We have implemented the Generic Electronics for Time Projection Chamber (GET) in a SAMURAI Pion Reconstruction and Ion-Tracker (SπRIT) readout system for heavy radioactive ion collision experiments ...at RIKEN-RIBF. The SπRIT experiment is designed for heavy ion collision experiments with radioactive ion beams, where a Time Projection Chamber (TPC) with 12096 pixelized readout pads is employed as the main device. Since the TPC is located on the beam line, the readout electronics must handle small signals from pions as well as very large signals from beam or large fragment particles. Operation of the GET electronics during experiment functioned well using 270 time-bucket readout with 25 MHz sampling at an event Data acquisition (DAQ) rate of 60 Hz. Using the slope information of acquired signals it is possible to extend the dynamic range of dE/dx information compared to using the peak height information. However, huge signals arising from energetic δ-rays produced by un-interacted projectiles induce dead channels, which can be recovered after 70 μs on average.
Using the waveforms from a digital electronic system, an offline analysis technique on pulse shape discrimination (PSD) has been developed to improve the neutron-gamma separation in a bar-shaped ...NE-213 scintillator that couples to a photomultiplier tube (PMT) at each end. The new improved method, called the "valued-assigned PSD" (VPSD), assigns a normalized fitting residual to every waveform as the PSD value. This procedure then facilitates the incorporation of longitudinal position dependence of the scintillator, which further enhances the PSD capability of the detector system. In this article, we use radiation emitted from an AmBe neutron source to demonstrate that the resulting neutron-gamma identification has been much improved when compared to the traditional technique that uses the geometric mean (GM) of light outputs from both PMTs. The new method has also been modified and applied to a recent experiment at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) that uses an analog electronic system.
We have combined the low-energy neutron detector WINDS (Wide-angle Inverse-kinematics Neutron Detectors for SHARAQ) and the SAMURAI spectrometer at RIKEN Nishina Center RI Beam Factory (RIBF) in ...order to perform (p,n) reactions in inverse kinematics for unstable nuclei in the mass region around A∼100. In this setup, WINDS is used for detecting recoil neutrons and the SAMURAI spectrometer is used for tagging decay channel of heavy residue. The first experiment by using the setup was performed to study Gamow–Teller transitions from 132Sn in April 2014. The atomic number Z and mass-to-charge ratio A/Q of the beam residues were determined from the measurements of time of flight, magnetic rigidity and energy loss. The obtained A/Q and Z resolutions were σA/Q=0.14% and σZ=0.22, respectively. Furthermore, owing to the large momentum acceptance (50%) of SAMURAI, the beam residues associated with the γ, 1n and 2n decay channel were measured in the same magnetic field setting. The kinematic loci of the measured recoil neutron energy and laboratory angle are clearly seen. It shows that the excitation energy up to about 20MeV can be reconstructed.
We report a new development of a phenolic four-gap resistive plate chamber (RPC) for use as a high-rate particle trigger in high-energy physics experiments. In the current study, a prototype RPC ...equipped with four 1-mm-thick gaps made from high-pressure-laminated (HPL) resistive plates has been designed and built. The current detector R&D aims to reduce the probability of radiation-induced degradation of the core detector components of the RPCs, the gas gaps, as well as to improve the detection rate capability. The detector characteristics of the four-gap RPC were obtained though a series of tests with cosmic muons and gamma rays and were compared with those of the typical 2-mm thick double-gap RPCs currently used in the CMS experiment at the LHC and in the PHENIX experiment at the RHIC.
In the past two decades, pions created in the high density regions of heavy ion collisions have been predicted to be sensitive at high densities to the symmetry energy term in the nuclear equation of ...state, a property that is key to our understanding of neutron stars. In a new experiment designed to study the symmetry energy, the multiplicities of negatively and positively charged pions have been measured with high accuracy for central 132Sn+124Sn, 112Sn+124Sn, and 108Sn+112Sn collisions at E/A=270 MeV with the SπRIT Time Projection Chamber. While individual pion multiplicities are measured to 4% accuracy, those of the charged pion multiplicity ratios are measured to 2% accuracy. We compare these data to predictions from seven major transport models. The calculations reproduce qualitatively the dependence of the multiplicities and their ratios on the total neutron and proton number in the colliding systems. However, the predictions of the transport models from different codes differ too much to allow extraction of reliable constraints on the symmetry energy from the data. This finding may explain previous contradictory conclusions on symmetry energy constraints obtained from pion data in Au+Au system. These new results call for still better understanding of the differences among transport codes, and new observables that are more sensitive to the density dependence of the symmetry energy.
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