Particle production and equilibrium properties within a new hadron transport approach for heavy-ion collisions

The microscopic description of heavy-ion reactions at low beam energies is achieved within hadronic transport approaches. In this article a new approach called ``Simulating Many Accelerated Strongly interacting Hadrons'' (SMASH) is introduced and applied to study the production of nonstrange particles in heavy-ion reactions at Eₖᵢₙ=0.4A--2A GeV. First, the model is described including details about the collision criterion, the initial conditions and the resonance formation and decays. To validate the approach, equilibrium properties such as detailed balance are presented and the results are compared to experimental data for elementary cross sections. Finally results for pion and proton production in C+C and Au+Au collisions is confronted with data from the high-acceptance dielectron spectrometer (HADES) and FOPI. Predictions for particle production in π+A collisions are made.