Examination of an isospin-dependent single-nucleon momentum distribution for isospin-asymmetric nuclear matter in heavy-ion collisions

Within a transport model using nucleon momentum profiles as the input from a parameterized isospin-dependent single-nucleon momentum distribution, with a high momentum tail induced by short-range correlations, we employ Au-197 + (19)7Au collisions at 400 MeV/nucleon to examine the effects of the short-range correlations on the pion and flow observables in probing the nuclear symmetry energy. We investigate how reliable this isospin-dependent single-nucleon momentum distribution is and determine the corresponding parameter settings. Apart from the significant effects of the short-range correlations on the pion and flow observables that are observed, we also find that the theoretical simulations of the Au-197 + Au-197 collisions with this momentum distribution using two sets of parameters, extracted from the experimental analysis and the self-consistent Green's function prediction, can reproduce the neutron elliptic flows of the FOPI-LAND experiment and the pi(-)/pi(+) ratios of the FOPI experiment, respectively, under the symmetry energy setting in a particular range. Therefore, we conclude that this parameterized isospin-dependent single-nucleon momentum distribution is reliable for isospin-asymmetric nuclear matter. Correspondingly, two sets of parameters extracted from both the experimental analysis and the selfconsistent Green's function prediction cannot be excluded according to the available experimental information at present.