Density dependence of the symmetry energy and the equation of state of isospin asymmetric nuclear matter

The density dependence of the symmetry energy in the equation of state of isospin asymmetric nuclear matter is studied using the isoscaling of the fragment yields and the antisymmetrized molecular dynamic calculation. It is observed that the experimental data at low densities are consistent with the form of symmetry energy, Esym≅31.6(ρ/ρcircle)0.69, in close agreement with those predicted by the results of variational many-body calculation. A comparison of the present result with those reported recently using the NSCL-MSU data suggests that the heavy ion studies favor a dependence of the form, Esym≅31.6(ρ/ρcircle)γ, where γ=0.6-1.05. This constrains the form of the density dependence of the symmetry energy at higher densities, ruling out an extremely 'stiff' and 'soft' dependences