Numerical simulation of medium energy heavy ion reactions

Reactions between heavy ions at medium energy are calculated using the Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck equation. This equation incorporates the effects of a mean field as well as Pauli blocking of the nucleon-nucleon collisions. The numerical solution for two light systems, ¹⁶O+¹²C at 25back20A MeV bombarding energy and ¹²C+¹²C at 84back20A MeV bombarding energy, is presented and discussed in detail. In the absence of nucleon-nucleon collisions, the theory reduces to classical mean-field physics and agrees well with the quantal time-dependent Hartree-Fock theory. With collisions, the system is driven toward equilibrium even at the lower bombarding energy. The final state nucleon distribution is compared to single-particle spectra and is found to agree quite well in shape.