Relativistic effects in the search for high density symmetry energy

Abstract Intermediate energy heavy ion collisions open the unique possibility to explore the equation of state (EOS) of nuclear matter far from saturation, in particular the density dependence of the symmetry energy. Within a relativistic transport model it is shown that the isovector–scalar δ meson, which affects the high density behavior of the symmetry energy density, influences the dynamics of heavy ion collisions in terms of isospin collective flows. The effect is largely enhanced by a relativistic mechanism related to the covariant nature of the fields contributing to the isovector channel. Results for reactions induced by 132 Sn radioactive beams are presented. The elliptic flows of nucleons and light isobars appear to be quite sensitive to microscopic structure of the symmetry term, in particular for particles with large transverse momenta, since they represent an earlier emission from a compressed source. Thus future, more exclusive, experiments with relativistic radioactive beams should be able to set stringent constraints on the density dependence of the symmetry energy far from ground state nuclear matter.