Progress in strange particle production and hypernuclear physics in intermediate and high-energy heavy-ion collisions

We reviewed the recent progress on strange particle production and hypernuclear physics both in experiments and in theories. The temporal evolutions of nucleons and resonances are described by the Skyrme energy density functional and relativistic covariant density functional theory, in which the meson-nucleon and hyperon-nucleon interactions are considered. Calculations are performed for the reactions of 12C+12C, 40Ca+40Ca, 112Sn+112Sn, and 197Au+197Au. The in-medium effects and high-density symmetry energy from the production of kaon, antikaon, and hyperon (Λ, Σ, Ξ) are investigated systematically. A quantum coalescence method is used to construct the hypernucleus, and the phase-space distribution is investigated in terms of the mass, charge, kinetic energy, rapidity distribution, collective flows, etc. Pre-equilibrium cluster emission in heavy-ion collisions is analyzed by implementing 2-, 3-, and 4-body nucleon collisions. The relativistic quantum molecular dynamics model is introduced by including ρ and δ coupling for nucleon transportation, and the collective flows are calculated for protons and neutrons. © 2023 Science Press. All rights reserved.