Directed and elliptic flows of neutrons and light charged particles were measured for the reaction 197 Au+ 197 Au at 400 MeV/nucleon incident energy within the ASY-EOS experimental campaign at the GSI laboratory. The detection system consisted of the Large Area Neutron Detector LAND, combined with parts of the CHIMERA multidetector, of the ALADIN Time-of-flight Wall, and of the Washington-University Microball detector. The latter three arrays were used for the event characterization and reaction-plane reconstruction. In addition, an array of triple telescopes, KRATTA, 2 was used for complementary measurements of the isotopic composition and flows of light charged particles.From the comparison of the elliptic flow ratio of neutrons with respect to charged particles with UrQMD predictions, a value γ = 0.72 ± 0.19 is obtained for the power-law coefficient describing the density dependence of the potential part in the parametrization of the symmetry energy. It represents a new and more stringent constraint for the regime of supra-saturation density and confirms, with a considerably smaller uncertainty, the moderately soft to linear density dependence deduced from the earlier FOPI-LAND data. The densities probed are shown to reach beyond twice saturation.

Midrapidity production of π ± , K ± , and (p)p measured by the ALICE experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, in Pb-Pb and inelastic pp collisions at √ s NN = 5.02 TeV, is presented. The invariant yields are measured over a wide transverse momentum (p T) range from hundreds of MeV/c up to 20 GeV/c. The results in Pb-Pb collisions are presented as a function of the collision centrality, in the range 0-90%. The comparison of the p T-integrated particle ratios, i.e., proton-to-pion (p/π) and kaon-to-pion (K/π) ratios, with similar measurements in Pb-Pb collisions at √ s NN = 2.76 TeV show no significant energy dependence. Blast-wave fits of the p T spectra indicate that in the most central collisions radial flow is slightly larger at 5.02 TeV with respect to 2.76 TeV. Particle ratios (p/π , K/π) as a function of p T show pronounced maxima at p T ≈ 3 GeV/c in central Pb-Pb collisions. At high p T , particle ratios at 5.02 TeV are similar to those measured in pp collisions at the same energy and in Pb-Pb collisions at √ s NN = 2.76 TeV. Using the pp reference spectra measured at the same collision energy of 5.02 TeV, the nuclear modification factors for the different particle species are derived. Within uncertainties, the nuclear modification factor is particle species independent for high p T and compatible with measurements at √ s NN = 2.76 TeV. The results are compared to state-of-the-art model calculations, which are found to describe the observed trends satisfactorily.

The first evidence of spin alignment of vector mesons (K Ã0 and ϕ) in heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is reported. The spin density matrix element ρ 00 is measured at midrapidity (jyj < 0.5) in Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy (ffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ffi s NN p) of 2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector. ρ 00 values are found to be less than 1=3 (1=3 implies no spin alignment) at low transverse momentum (p T < 2 GeV=c) for K Ã0 and ϕ at a level of 3σ and 2σ, respectively. No significant spin alignment is observed for the K 0 S meson (spin ¼ 0) in Pb-Pb collisions and for the vector mesons in pp collisions. The measured spin alignment is unexpectedly large but qualitatively consistent with the expectation from models which attribute it to a polarization of quarks in the presence of angular momentum in heavy-ion collisions and a subsequent hadronization by the process of recombination.

We present a new experimental method to correlate the isotopic composition of intermediate mass fragments (IMF) emitted at mid-rapidity in semi-peripheral collisions with the emission timescale: IMFs emitted in the early stage of the reaction show larger values of isospin asymmetry, stronger angular anisotropies and reduced odd-even staggering effects in neutron to proton ratio distributions than those produced in sequential statistical emission. All these effects support the concept of isospin "migration", that is sensitive to the density gradient between participant and quasi-spectator nuclear matter, in the so called neck fragmentation mechanism. By comparing the data to a Stochastic Mean Field (SMF) simulation we show that this method gives valuable constraints on the symmetry energy term of nuclear equation of state at subsaturation densities. An indication emerges for a linear density dependence of the symmetry energy.

The production rates and the transverse momentum distribution of strange hadrons at mid-rapidity (|y| < 0.5) are measured in proton-proton collisions at √ s = 13 TeV as a function of the charged particle multiplicity, using the ALICE detector at the LHC. The production rates of K 0 S , , , and increase with the multiplicity faster than what is reported for inclusive charged particles. The increase is found to be more pronounced for hadrons with a larger strangeness content. Possible auto-correlations between the charged particles and the strange hadrons are evaluated by measuring the event-activity with charged particle multiplicity estimators covering different pseudorapidity regions. When comparing to lower energy results, the yields of strange hadrons are found to depend only on the mid-rapidity charged particle multiplicity. Several features of the data are reproduced qualitatively by general purpose QCD Monte Carlo models that take into account the effect of densely-packed QCD strings in high multiplicity collisions. However, none of the tested models reproduce the data quantitatively. This work corroborates and extends the ALICE findings on strangeness production in proton-proton collisions at 7 TeV.