Correlation functions in constrained molecular dynamics ( CoMD )

The interactions between nucleons (proton-proton, neutron-neutron, proton-neutron) are not particularly well constrained, and continue to be an area of study [1-3]. One method for characterizing these interactions is through correlation functions, which can graphically and numerically show the effects from quantum, Coulomb, and other interactions between nucleons. The shape of correlation functions is strongly influenced by these effects, and correlation functions have long been used to extract spatial and temporal information about the excited emitting sources [1,2,4,5]. Theoretical predictions have suggested that the contribution of the symmetry potential to the behavior of nucleon-nucleon interactions may be large enough that neutron-neutron, proton-proton, and neutron-proton correlation functions are sensitive to the size of the source and the timescale of particle emission [3]. The shape of the correlation functions may therefore be sensitive to the symmetry energy in the nuclear equation-of-state. Constrained Molecular Dynamics (CoMD) simulations of neutron-rich and neutron-poor calcium on nickel systems have been run using two different formulations of the aforementioned nucleon interactions to investigate the possibility of experimentally probing the density-dependence of the symmetry energy in these correlation functions using detectors with high angular resolution. The correlation functions are defined and plotted in terms of the relative angular momentum of any two protons , . Where