Asymmetric colliding nuclear matter approach in heavy ion collisions

The early stage of a heavy ion collision is governed by local non-equilibrium momentum distributions which have been approximated by colliding nuclear matter configurations, i.e., by two Lorentz elongated Fermi ellipsoids. This approach has been extended from the previous assumption of symmetric systems to asymmetric 2-Fermi sphere configurations, i.e., to different densities. This provides a smoother transition from the limiting situation of two interpenetrating currents to an equilibrated system. The model is applied to the dynamical situations of heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies within the framework of relativistic transport (RBUU) calculations. We find that the extended colliding nuclear matter approach is more appropriate to describe collective reaction dynamics in terms of flow observables, in particular, for the elliptic flow at low energies. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.