Transport Model Comparison Studies of Intermediate-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions
Creators: name: Wolter, Hermann
name: Colonna, Maria
name: Cozma, Dan
name: Danielewicz, Pawel
name: Ko, Che Ming
name: Kumar, Rohit
name: Ono, Akira
name: Tsang, ManYee Betty
name: Xu, Jun
name: Zhang, Ying-Xun
name: Bratkovskaya, Elena
name: Feng, Zhao-Qing
name: Gaitanos, Theodoros
name: Fèvre, Arnaud Le
name: Ikeno, Natsumi
name: Kim, Youngman
name: Mallik, Swagata
name: Napolitani, Paolo
name: Oliinychenko, Dmytro
name: Ogawa, Tatsuhiko
name: Papa, Massimo
name: Su, Jun
name: Wang, Rui
name: Wang, Yong-Jia
name: Weil, Janus
name: Zhang, Feng-Shou
name: Zhang, Guo-Qiang
name: Zhang, Zhen
name: Aichelin, Joerg
name: Cassing, Wolfgang
name: Chen, Lie-Wen
name: Cheng, Hui-Gan
name: Elfner, Hannah
name: Gallmeister, K.
name: Hartnack, Christoph
name: Hashimoto, Shintaro
name: Jeon, Sangyong
name: Kim, Kyungil
name: Kim, Myungkuk
name: Li, Bao-An
name: Lee, Chang-Hwan
name: Li, Qing-Feng
name: Li, Zhu-Xia
name: Mosel, Ulrich
name: Nara, Yasushi
name: Niita, Koji
name: Ohnishi, Akira
name: Sato, Tatsuhiko
name: Song, Taesoo
name: Sorensen, Agnieszka
name: Wang, Ning
name: Xie, Wen-Jie
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
subject: Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Transport models are the main method to obtain physics information from low to relativistic-energy heavy-ion collisions. The Transport Model Evaluation Project (TMEP) has been pursued to test the robustness of transport model predictions in reaching consistent conclusions from the same type of physical model. Calculations under controlled conditions of physical input and set-up were performed with various participating codes. These included both calculations of nuclear matter in a box with periodic boundary conditions, and more realistic calculations of heavy-ion collisions. In this intermediate review, we summarize and discuss the present status of the project. We also provide condensed descriptions of the 26 participating codes, which contributed to some part of the project. These include the major codes in use today. We review the main results of the studies completed so far. They show, that in box calculations the differences between the codes can be well understood and a convergence of the results can be reached. These studies also highlight the systematic differences between the two families of transport codes, known as BUU and QMD type codes. However, when the codes were compared in full heavy-ion collisions using different physical models, as recently for pion production, they still yielded substantially different results. This calls for further comparisons of heavy-ion collisions with controlled models and of box comparisons of important ingredients, like momentum-dependent fields, which are currently underway. We often indicate improved strategies in performing transport simulations and thus provide guidance to code developers. Results of transport simulations of heavy-ion collisions from a given code will have more significance if the code can be validated against benchmark calculations such as the ones summarized in this review.
description: 114 pages, 14 figures, 479 references, accepted for publication in Progress of Particle and Nuclear Phsics