Dynamical effects of spin-dependent interactions in low- and intermediate-energy heavy-ion reactions

It is well known that noncentral nuclear forces, such as the spin-orbital coupling and the tensor force, play important roles in understanding many interesting features of nuclear structures. However, their dynamical effects in nuclear reactions are poorly known because only the spin-averaged observables are normally studied both experimentally and theoretically. Realizing that spin-sensitive observables in nuclear reactions may convey useful information about the in-medium properties of noncentral nuclear interactions, besides earlier studies using the time-dependent Hartree-Fock approach to understand the effects of spin-orbital coupling on the threshold energy and spin polarization in fusion reactions, some efforts have been made recently to explore the dynamical effects of noncentral nuclear forces in intermediate-energy heavy-ion collisions using transport models. The focus of these studies has been on investigating signatures of the density and isospin dependence of the form factor in the spin-dependent single-nucleon potential. Interestingly, some useful probes were identified in the model studies but so far there are still no data to compare with. In this brief review, we summarize the main physics motivations as well as the recent progress in understanding the spin dynamics and identifying spin-sensitive observables in heavy-ion reactions at intermediate energies. We hope the interesting, important, and new physics potentials identified in the spin dynamics of heavy-ion collisions will stimulate more experimental work in this direction.