Transport Theory, Viscosity and Kaon Production

Abstract

Intermediate energy heavy ion research has witnessed a rapid development in the past decade, both experimentally and theoretically. It was realized already very early that nucleus-nucleus collisions in the bombarding energy regime of several hundred MeV up to a few GeV per nucleon provide the only tool to investigate in the laboratory the behaviour of nuclear matter under extreme conditions, i.e. at high temperature and high density. This behaviour is summarized by the equation of state (EOS) which states the pressure P as a function of the density ρ and the temperature T: P = P(ρ,T) (thermodynamic EOS), or, equivalently, the internal energy E as a function of p and T: E = E( ρ,T).(caloric EOS). It has become customary to employ the latter form in intermediate energy heavy ion research.