arXiv subjects

Lie-Wen Chen

Publications and source records attributed to Lie-Wen Chen.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Production of $ΛΛ$ and $\bar{Λ\text{n}}$ in central Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=2.76 TeV within a covariant coalescence model

We study the production of $ΛΛ$ and $\overline{Λ\text{n}}$ exotic states in central Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV at LHC via both hadron and quark coalescence within a covariant coalescence model with a blast-wave-like parametrization for the phase-space configurations of constituent particles at freezeout. In the hadron coalescence, the two states are considered as molecular states while they are considered as six-quark states in the quark coalescence.For $\overline{Λ\text{n}}$, we find that the yields of both molecular and six-quark states are much larger than the experimental upper-limits. For $ΛΛ$, while the molecule-state yield is much larger than the experimental upper-limits, the six-quark-state yield could be lower than the upper-limits. The higher molecule-state yields are mainly due to the large contribution of short-lived strong resonance decays into (anti-)nucleons and (anti-)$Λ$ which can significantly enhance the molecule-state yields of $ΛΛ$ and $\overline{Λ\text{n}}$ via hadron coalescence. Our results suggest that the current experimental measurement at LHC cannot exclude the existence of the $ΛΛ$ as an exotic six-quark state, and if $ΛΛ$ is a six-quark state, it is then on the brink of being discovered.

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arXiv2016

Proton-skins in momentum space and neutron-skins in coordinate space in heavy nuclei

Neutron-skins in coordinate space and proton-skins in momentum space are predicted to coexist in heavy nuclei and their correlation is governed by Liouville's theorem and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. An analysis of their correlation within a further extended Thomas-Fermi (ETF$^+$) approximation incorporating effects of nucleon short-range correlations reveals generally that protons move faster than neutrons in neutron-skins of heavy nuclei.

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arXiv2016

Isospin properties of quark matter from a 3-flavor NJL model

We have studied the properties of hot and dense quark matter based on the 3-flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model as well as its Polyakov-loop extension (pNJL) with scalar-isovector and vector-isovector couplings. Provided a considerable large isospin asymmetry or isospin chemical potential, isospin splittings of constituent mass, chiral phase transition boundary, and critical point for $u$ and $d$ quarks can be observed for positive isovector coupling constants but are suppressed for negative ones. The quark matter symmetry energy decreases with the increasing isovector coupling constant, and is mostly enhanced in the pNJL model than in the NJL model. A positive scalar-isovector coupling constant is more likely to lead to an unstable isospin asymmetric quark matter. The isovector coupling has been further found to affect particle fractions as well as the equation of state in hybrid stars. Possible effects on the isospin properties of quark matter have also been discussed if the strangeness sector is further broken among the flavor symmetry.

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arXiv2016

Isospin dependence of nucleon effective masses in neutron-rich matter

In this talk, we first briefly review the isospin dependence of the total nucleon effective mass $M^{\ast}_{J}$ inferred from analyzing nucleon-nucleus scattering data within an isospin dependent non-relativistic optical potential model, and the isospin dependence of the nucleon E-mass $M^{\ast,\rm{E}}_{J}$ obtained from applying the Migdal-Luttinger theorem to a phenomenological single-nucleon momentum distribution in nuclei constrained by recent electron-nucleus scattering experiments. Combining information about the isospin dependence of both the nucleon total effective mass and E-mass, we then infer the isospin dependence of nucleon k-mass using the well-known relation $M^{\ast}_{J}=M^{\ast,\rm{E}}_{J}\cdot M^{\ast,\rm{k}}_{J}$. Implications of the results on the nucleon mean free path (MFP) in neutron-rich matter are discussed.

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arXiv2016

Strange Quark Stars as Probe of Dark Matter

We demonstrate that the observation of old strange quark stars (SQSs) can set important limits on the scattering cross sections $σ_q$ between the light quarks and the non-interacting scalar dark matter (DM). By analyzing a set of 1403 of solitary pulsarlike compact stars in the Milky Way, we find the old solitary pulsar PSR J1801-0857D can set the most stringent upper limits on $σ_q$ or the DM-proton scattering cross sections $σ_p$. By converting $σ_q$ into $σ_p$ based on effective operator analyses, we show the resulting $σ_p$ limit by assuming PSR J1801-0857D to be a SQS could be comparable with that of the current direct detection experiments but much weaker (by several orders of magnitude) than that obtained by assuming PSR J1801-0857D to be a neutron star (NS), which requires an extremely small $σ_p$ far beyond the limits of direct detection experiments. Our findings imply that the old pulsars are favored to be SQSs rather than NSs if the scalar DM were observed by future terrestrial experiments.

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arXiv2016

Antimatter $^4_Λ$H Hypernucleus Production and the $^3_Λ$H/$^3$He Puzzle in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

We show that the measured yield ratio $^3_Λ$H/$^3$He ($^3_{\overlineΛ}\overline{\text{H}}$/$^3\overline{\text{He}}$) in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV and in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV can be understood within a covariant coalescence model if (anti-)$Λ$ particles freeze out earlier than (anti-)nucleons but their relative freezeout time is closer at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV than at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV. The earlier (anti-)$Λ$ freezeout can significantly enhance the yield of (anti)hypernucleus $^4_Λ$H ($^4_{\overlineΛ}\overline{\text{H}}$), leading to that $^4_{\overlineΛ}\overline{\text{H}}$ has a comparable abundance with $^4\overline{\text{He}}$ and thus provides an easily measured antimatter candidate heavier than $^4\overline{\text{He}}$. The future measurement on $^4_Λ$H ($^4_{\overlineΛ}\overline{\text{H}}$) would be very useful to understand the (anti-)$Λ$ freezeout dynamics and the production mechanism of (anti)hypernuclei in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.

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arXiv2016

Understanding transport simulations of heavy-ion collisions at 100 and 400 AMeV: Comparison of heavy ion transport codes under controlled conditions

Transport simulations are very valuable for extracting physics information from heavy-ion collision experiments. With the emergence of many different transport codes in recent years, it becomes important to estimate their robustness in extracting physics information from experiments. We report on the results of a transport code comparison project. 18 commonly used transport codes were included in this comparison: 9 Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck-type codes and 9 Quantum-Molecular-Dynamics-type codes. These codes have been required to simulate Au+Au collisions using the same physics input for mean fields and for in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections, as well as the same initialization set-up, the impact parameter, and other calculational parameters at 100 and 400 AMeV incident energy. Among the codes we compare one-body observables such as rapidity and transverse flow distributions. We also monitor non-observables such as the initialization of the internal states of colliding nuclei and their stability, the collision rates and the Pauli blocking. We find that not completely identical initializations constitute partly for different evolutions. Different strategies to determine the collision probabilities, and to enforce the Pauli blocking, also produce considerably different results. There is a substantial spread in the predictions for the observables, which is much smaller at the higher incident energy. We quantify the uncertainties in the collective flow resulting from the simulation alone as about $30\%$ at 100 AMeV and $13\%$ at 400 AMeV, respectively. We propose further steps within the code comparison project to test the different aspects of transport simulations in a box calculation of infinite nuclear matter. This should, in particular, improve the robustness of transport model predictions at lower incident energies where abundant amounts of data are available.

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arXiv2016

Isospin splitting of nucleon effective mass from giant resonances in $^{208}$Pb

Based on mean field calculations with Skyrme interactions, we extract a constraint on the isovector effective mass in nuclear matter at saturation density $ρ_0$, i.e., $m_{v}^{\ast}(ρ_0)=(0.77\pm0.03) m$ by combining the experimental data of the centroid energy of the isovector giant dipole resonance (IVGDR) and the electric dipole polarizability $α_{\mathrm{D}}$ in $^{208}$Pb. Meanwhile, the isoscalar effective mass at $ρ_0$ is determined to be $m_{s}^{\ast}(ρ_0)=(0.91\pm0.05) m$ by analyzing the measured excitation energy of the isoscalar giant quadrupole resonance (ISGQR) in $^{208}$Pb. From the constrained $m_{s}^{\ast}(ρ_0)$ and $m_{v}^{\ast}(ρ_0)$, we obtain the isospin splitting of nucleon effective mass in asymmetric nuclear matter of isospin asymmetry $δ$ at $ρ_0$ as $[m_n^{\ast}(ρ_0,δ)-m_p^{\ast}(ρ_0,δ)]/m = Δm^*_1(ρ_0) δ+ O(δ^3)$ with the linear isospin splitting coefficient $Δm^*_1(ρ_0) = 0.33\pm0.16$. We notice that using the recently corrected data on the $α_{\mathrm{D}}$ in $^{208}$Pb with the contribution of the quasideuteron effect subtracted slightly enhances the isovector effective mass to $m_{v}^{\ast}(ρ_0)=(0.80\pm0.03) m$ and reduces the linear isospin splitting coefficient to $Δm^*_1(ρ_0) = 0.27\pm0.15$. Furthermore, the constraints on $m_{v}^{\ast}(ρ)$, $m_{s}^{\ast}(ρ)$ and $Δm^*_1(ρ)$ at other densities are obtained from the similar analyses and we find that the $Δm^*_1(ρ)$ increases with the density.

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arXiv2016

Hidden-charm Pentaquark States in Heavy Ion Collisions at the Large Hadron Collider

In the framework of the quark combination, we derive the yield formulas and study the yield ratios of the hidden-charm pentaquark states in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. We propose some interesting yield ratios which clearly exhibit the production relationships between different hidden-charm pentaquark states. We show how to employ a specific quark combination model to evaluate the yields of exotic $P_c^+(4380)$, $P_c^+(4450)$ and their partners on the basis of reproducing the yields of normal identified hadrons, and execute the calculations in central Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}= 2.76$ TeV as an example.

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arXiv2015

Production of antimatter $^{5,6}$Li nuclei in central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV

Combining the covariant coalescence model and a blast-wave-like analytical parametrization for (anti-)nucleon phase-space freezeout configuration, we explore light (anti-)nucleus production in central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV. Using the nucleon freezeout configuration (denoted by FO1) determined from the measured spectra of protons (p), deutrons (d) and $^{3}$He, we find the predicted yield of $^{4}$He is significantly smaller than the experimental data. We show this disagreement can be removed by using a nucleon freezeout configuration (denoted by FO2) in which the nucleons are assumed to freeze out earlier than those in FO1 to effectively consider the effect of large binding energy value of $^{4}$He. Assuming the binding energy effect also exists for the production of $^5\text{Li}$, $^5\overline{\text{Li}}$, $^6\text{Li}$ and $^6\overline{\text{Li}}$ due to their similar binding energy values as $^{4}$He, we find the yields of these heavier (anti-)nuclei can be enhanced by a factor of about one order, implying that although the stable (anti-)$^6$Li nucleus is unlikely to be observed, the unstable (anti-)$^5$Li nucleus could be produced in observable abundance in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV where it may be identified through the p-$^4\text{He}$ ($\overline{\text{p}}$-$^4\overline{\text{He}}$) invariant mass spectrum. The future experimental measurement on (anti-)$^5\text{Li}$ would be very useful to understand the production mechanism of heavier antimatter.

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arXiv2015

Positioning the neutron drip line and the r-process paths in the nuclear landscape

Exploring nucleon drip lines and astrophysical rapid neutron capture process (r-process) paths in the nuclear landscape is extremely challenging in nuclear physics and astrophysics. While various models predict similar proton drip line, their predictions for neutron drip line and the r-process paths involving heavy neutron-rich nuclei exhibit a significant variation which hampers our accurate understanding of the r-process nucleosynthesis mechanism. Using microscopic density functional theory with a representative set of non-relativistic and relativistic interactions, we demonstrate for the first time that this variation is mainly due to the uncertainty of nuclear matter symmetry energy $E_{\rm{sym}}(ρ_{\rm{sc}})$ at the subsaturation cross density $ρ_{\rm{sc}}=0.11/0.16\timesρ_0$ ($ρ_0$ is saturation density), which reflects the symmetry energy of heavy nuclei. Using the recent accurate constraint on $E_{\rm{sym}}(ρ_{\rm{sc}})$ from the binding energy difference of heavy isotope pairs, we obtain quite precise predictions for the location of the neutron drip line, the r-process paths and the number of bound nuclei in the nuclear landscape. Our results have important implications on extrapolating the properties of unknown neutron-rich rare isotopes from the data on known nuclei.

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arXiv2015

Electric Dipole Polarizability in $^{208}$Pb as a Probe of the Symmetry Energy and Neutron Matter around $ρ_0/3$

It is currently a big challenge to accurately determine the symmetry energy $E_{\text{sym}}(ρ)$ and the pure neutron matter equation of state $E_{\text{PNM}}(ρ)$, even their values around saturation density $ρ_0 $. We find that the electric dipole polarizability $α_ {\text{D}}$ in $^{208}$Pb can be determined uniquely by the magnitude of the $E_{\text{sym}}(ρ)$ or almost equivalently the $E_{\text{PNM}}(ρ)$ at subsaturation densities around $ρ_0/3 $, shedding a light upon the genuine correlation between the $α_ {\text{D}}$ and the $E_{\text{sym}}(ρ)$. By analyzing the experimental data of the $α_ {\text{D}}$ in $^{208}$Pb from RCNP using a number of non-relativistic and relativistic mean-field models, we obtain very stringent constraints on $E_{\text{sym}}(ρ)$ and $E_{\text{PNM}}(ρ)$ around $ρ_0/3 $. The obtained constraints are found to be in good agreement with the results extracted in other analyses. In particular, our results provide for the first time the experimental constraints on $E_{\text{PNM}}(ρ)$ around $ρ_0/3 $, which are in harmony with the recent determination of $E_{\text{PNM}}(ρ)$ from microscopic theoretical studies and potentially useful in constraining the largely uncertain many-nucleon interactions in microscopic calculations of neutron matter.

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arXiv2015

Symmetry energy systematics and its high density behavior

We explore the systematics of the density dependence of nuclear matter symmetry energy in the ambit of microscopic calculations with various energy density functionals, and find that the symmetry energy from subsaturation density to supra-saturation density can be well determined by three characteristic parameters of the symmetry energy at saturation density $ρ_0 $, i.e., the magnitude $E_{\text{sym}}({ρ_0 })$, the density slope $L$ and the density curvature $K_{\text{sym}}$. This finding opens a new window to constrain the supra-saturation density behavior of the symmetry energy from its (sub-)saturation density behavior. In particular, we obtain $L=46.7 \pm 12.8$ MeV and $K_{\text{sym}}=-166.9 \pm 168.3$ MeV as well as $E_{\text{sym}}({2ρ_{0}}) \approx 40.2 \pm 12.8$ MeV and $L({2ρ_{0}}) \approx 8.9 \pm 108.7$ MeV based on the present knowledge of $E_{\text{sym}}({ρ_{0}}) = 32.5 \pm 0.5$ MeV, $E_{\text{sym}}({ρ_c}) = 26.65 \pm 0.2$ MeV and $L({ρ_c}) = 46.0 \pm 4.5$ MeV at $ρ_{\rm{c}}= 0.11$ fm$^{-3}$ extracted from nuclear mass and the neutron skin thickness of Sn isotopes. Our results indicate that the symmetry energy cannot be stiffer than a linear density dependence.In addition, we also discuss the quark matter symmetry energy since the deconfined quarks could be the right degree of freedom in dense matter at high baryon densities.

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arXiv2015

Neutron-proton effective mass splitting in neutron-rich matter and its impacts on nuclear reactions

The neutron-proton effective mass splitting in neutron-rich nucleonic matter reflects the space-time nonlocality of the isovector nuclear interaction. It affects the neutron/proton ratio during the earlier evolution of the Universe, cooling of protoneutron stars, structure of rare isotopes and dynamics of heavy-ion collisions. While there is still no consensus on whether the neutron-proton effective mass splitting is negative, zero or positive and how it depends on the density as well as the isospin-asymmetry of the medium, significant progress has been made in recent yeas in addressing these issues. We first recall the connections among the neutron-proton effective mass splitting, the momentum dependence of the isovector potential and the density dependence of the symmetry energy. We then make a few observations about the progress in calculating the neutron-proton effective mass splitting using various nuclear many-body theories and its effects on the isospin-dependence of in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections. Perhaps, our most reliable knowledge so far about the neutron-proton effective mass splitting at saturation density of nuclear matter comes from optical model analyses of huge sets of nucleon-nucleus scattering data accumulated over the last five decades. The momentum dependence of the symmetry potential from these analyses provide a useful boundary condition at saturation density for calibrating nuclear many-body calculations. Several observables in heavy-ion collisions have been identified as sensitive probes of the neutron-proton effective mass splitting in dense neutron-rich matter based on transport model simulations. We review these observables and comment on the latest experimental findings.

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arXiv2015

Revisit of the neutron/proton ratio puzzle in intermediate-energy heavy-ion collisions

Incorporating a newly improved isospin- and momentum-dependent interaction in the isospin-dependent Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck transport model IBUU11, we have investigated relative effects of the density dependence of nuclear symmetry energy $E_{sym}(ρ)$ and the neutron-proton effective mass splitting $m^*_n-m^*_p$ on the neutron/proton ratio of free nucleons and those in light clusters. It is found that the $m^*_n-m^*_p$ has a relatively stronger effect than the $E_{sym}(ρ)$ and the assumption of $m^*_n\leq m^*_p$ leads to a higher neutron/proton ratio. Moreover, this finding is independent of the in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections used. However, results of our calculations using the $E_{sym}(ρ)$ and $m^*_n-m^*_p$ both within their current uncertainty ranges are all too low compared to the recent NSCL/MSU double neutron/proton ratio data from central $^{124}$Sn+$^{124}$Sn and $^{112}$Sn+$^{112}$Sn collisions at 50 and 120 MeV/u, thus calling for new mechanisms to explain the puzzlingly high neutron/proton ratio observed in the experiments.

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arXiv2015

Neutron-proton effective mass splitting in neutron-rich matter at normal density from analyzing nucleon-nucleus scattering data within an isospin dependent optical model

The neutron-proton effective $k$-mass splitting in asymmetric nucleonic matter of isospin asymmetry $δ$ and normal density is found to be $m^{*}_{n-p}\equiv(m^{*}_{n}-m^{*}_{p})/m=(0.41 \pm0.15)δ$ from analyzing globally 1088 sets of reaction and angular differential cross sections of proton elastic scattering on 130 targets with beam energies from 0.783 MeV to 200 MeV, and 1161 sets of data of neutron elastic scattering on 104 targets with beam energies from 0.05 MeV to 200 MeV within an isospin dependent non-relativistic optical potential model. It sets a useful reference for testing model predictions on the momentum dependence of the nucleon isovector potential necessary for understanding novel structures and reactions of rare isotopes.

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arXiv2015

Influence of neutron-skin thickness on $π^{-}/π^{+}$ ratio in Pb+Pb collisions

Within an isospin- and momentum-dependent transport model IBUU11 using as an input nucleon density profiles from Hartree-Fock calculations based on a modified Skyrme-like (MSL) model, we study the influence of the uncertainty of the neutron skin thickness on the $π^{-}/π^{+}$ ratio in both central and peripheral Pb+Pb collisions at beam energies of 400 MeV/nucleon and 1000 MeV/nucleon. Within the current experimental uncertainty range of neutron skin in $^{208}$Pb, while the neutron skin effect on the \rpi ratio is negligible in central reactions at both energies, it increases gradually with increasing impact parameter and becomes comparable with or even larger than the symmetry energy effect in peripheral collisions especially at 400 MeV/nucleon. Moreover, we found that while the \rpi ratio is larger with a softer \esym in central collisions, above certain impact parameters depending on the size of the neutron skin, a stiffer \esym can lead to a larger \rpi ratio as most of the pions are produced at densities below the saturation density in these peripheral reactions. Thus, a clear impact parameter selection is important to extract reliable information about the \esym at suprasaturation densities (size of neutron skin) from the $π^-/π^+$ ratio in central (peripheral) heavy-ion collisions.

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arXiv2015

Thermal properties of asymmetric nuclear matter with an improved isospin- and momentum-dependent interaction

Thermal properties of asymmetric nuclear matter, including the temperature dependence of the symmetry energy, single-particle properties, and differential isospin fractionation, are investigated with different neutron-proton effective mass splittings using an improved isospin- and momentum-dependent interaction. In this improved interaction, the momentum-dependence of the isoscalar single-particle potential at saturation density is well fitted to that extracted from optical model analyses of proton-nucleus scattering data up to nucleon kinetic energy of 1 GeV, and the isovector properties, i.e., the slope of the nuclear symmetry energy, the momentum-dependence of the symmetry potential, and the symmetry energy at saturation density can be flexibly adjusted via three parameters $x$, $y$, and $z$, respectively. Our results indicate that the nucleon phase-space distribution in equilibrium, the temperature dependence of the symmetry energy, and the differential isospin fractionation can be significantly affected by the isospin splitting of nucleon effective mass.

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