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.

NA61/SHINE (SPS Heavy Ion and Neutrino Experiment) is a multi-purpose experimental facility to study hadron production in hadron-proton, hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron. It recorded the first physics data with hadron beams in 2009 and with ion beams (secondary 7 Be beams) in 2011.NA61/SHINE has greatly profited from the long development of the CERN proton and ion sources and the accelerator chain as well as the H2 beamline of the CERN North Area. The latter has recently been modified to also serve as a fragment separator as needed to produce the Be beams for NA61/SHINE. Numerous components of the NA61/SHINE set-up were inherited from its predecessors, in particular, the last one, the NA49 experiment. Important new detectors and upgrades of the legacy equipment were introduced by the NA61/SHINE Collaboration.This paper describes the state of the NA61/SHINE facility -the beams and the detector system -before the CERN Long Shutdown I, which started in March 2013.

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Charged particle pseudorapidity densities are presented for the 197 Au + 197 Au reaction at √ s NN = 130 GeV. These densities provide an essential characterization of the underlying reactions mechanisms for ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. This talk details how the global charged particle yields are measured at BRAHMS and presents some preliminary results from the analysis of data taken during the first year of the RHIC experimental program.