# Neutrons from multiplicity-selected La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV

## I Introduction

A primary goal of relativistic heavy-ion physics is to extract the equation-of-state (EOS) of nuclear matter. The EOS is the relationship between density, temperature, and pressure for nuclear matter . Various experiments  have been undertaken in an effort to extract the EOS. In central collisions, the overlap regions of the target and the projectile form a compression zone of high density. Particles in this zone experience a deflection or outward flow from the interaction region. Measurements  with the Plastic Ball-Wall detector  revealed three collective flow effects: the bounce-off of the spectators, the side-splash of the participants, and the squeeze-out of the participants in directions normal to the reaction plane. Measurements of the collective momentum flow in the collisions, including the flow angle  and the average transverse momentum in the reaction plane , were studied with a view toward extracting the nuclear EOS.

Zhang et al.  investigated the collective flow of neutrons correlated to the azimuthal distributions for semicentral Au-Au collisions at beam energies of 150, 250, 400, and 650 MeV per nucleon. Elaasar et al.  reported the first azimuthal distributions of triple-differential cross sections for neutrons emitted in Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and examined the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratios of these neutron cross sections as a probe of the nuclear equation of state by comparison with Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) calculations for free neutrons with a momentum-dependent interaction. Madey et al. extended this comparison to 400A MeV Au-Au collisions and found that the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio does not depend on the mass of the colliding nuclei. Welke et al.  defined the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio $`r(\theta )`$ as a ratio of the maximum triple-differential cross section to the minimum triple-differential cross section at each polar angle.

In this paper, we report measurements of triple-differential cross sections of neutrons emitted in high-multiplicity La-La collisions at 250 and 400A MeV (and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV) as a function of the azimuthal angle with respect to the reaction plane for several polar angles. From these data and our prior data  for Au-Au collisions at 400A MeV, we examined the sensitivity of the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio $`r(\theta )`$ to the mass of three systems \[viz., Nb-Nb, La-La, and Au-Au\] and to the beam energy from 250 to 400A MeV for the La-La system; we extracted the flow  of neutrons from the slope at mid-rapidity of the curve of the average in-plane momentum versus the neutron center-of-mass rapidity; and we observed the out-of-plane squeeze-out of neutrons in three systems \[viz., 250 and 400A MeV La-La, and 400A MeV Nb-Nb\].

## II Experimental Apparatus

Based on experience gained from experiment 848H in 1988 , an extension of experiment 848H was performed with the Bevalac at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) with the improved experimental arrangement shown in Fig. 1. This experiment was improved over the original version by adding the capability of identifying charged-particles with $`Z=1`$, $`Z=2`$, and $`Z>2`$. With this improvement, data were obtained for La-La collisions at 250 and 400A MeV and for Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV.

A beam telescope, consisting of two scintillators S<sub>1</sub> and S<sub>2</sub>, was used to select and count valid projectile beam ions and to provide a fiducial timing signal for the measurement of the flight times to the time-of-flight (TOF) wall detectors and to the neutron detectors. Scintillator S1 was positioned 13.04 m upstream of the target in the beam. Scintillator S2 was placed immediately before the target. A total of 16 mean-timed neutron detectors  were placed at angles from 3 to 80 with flight paths ranging from 6 to 8.4 m. Table I shows the width, polar angle, and flight path of each neutron detector used in this experiment. The width of the neutron detector and the flight path at each angle were selected to provide approximately equal counting rates and energy resolutions for the highest energy neutrons at each angle. To avoid detecting charged particles in neutron detectors, 9.5-mm thick anticoincidence detectors were placed immediately in front of the neutron detectors. The TOF of each detected neutron was determined by measuring the time difference between the detection of a neutron in one of the neutron detectors and the detection of a projectile ion in the beam telescope.

The azimuthal angle of the reaction plane was determined from the information given by a time-of-flight (TOF) wall, which consisted of 184 plastic scintillators, each with a thickness of 9.5 mm. The overall dimensions of the TOF wall were 5-m wide and 4.5-m high. The plastic wall was shaped as an arc around the target, and covered angles of $`\pm 37^{}`$ relative to the beam line. The flight paths of the TOF wall detectors varied from about 4.0 to 5.0 m.

To assess the background, steel shadow shields were positioned approximately half-way between the TOF wall and the neutron detectors in four different configurations (see Table I). The resulting spectra were then subtracted from the ones without shadow shields. We used a method introduced by Zhang et al.  to correct for an over-estimation of backgrounds by this shadow-shield subtraction technique.

## III Data Analysis

In order to suppress the background arising from collisions of beam ions and air molecules between the target and the TOF wall, an appropriate multiplicity-cut had to be made. Figure 2 shows the charged-particle multiplicity spectra with (solid line) and without (dashed line) the target for La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV. A proper multiplicity-cut was chosen by comparing the charged-particle multiplicity spectra with and without the target in place. To make meaningful comparisons of the data for La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV, the multiplicity cuts chosen should correspond to approximately the same range in normalized impact parameter while keeping the background contaminations (from collisions of beam ions with the air or material in the beam telescope) below 5%. For La-La collisions at 400 and 250A MeV, the appropriate charged-particle multiplicity cuts were found to be 34 and 30, respectively, whereas a multiplicity cut of 25 was determined for Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV. From the relationship between the total number of interactions expected from the geometric cross section of the system and with the well-known assumption  of a monotonic correlation between the impact parameter and the fragment multiplicity, the maximum impact parameter normalized to the radii of the projectile and target, $`b_{max}/(R_p+R_t)`$, was found to be about 0.5 for the above multiplicity cuts. The method of extracting the maximum-normalized impact parameter $`b_{max}/(R_p+R_t)`$ can be found in reference .

### A Determination of Reaction Plane

To study flow, it is necessary to determine the reaction plane, (i.e., the $`xz`$-plane), where x̂ is in the direction of the impact parameter of the collision, and ẑ is in beam direction. The reaction plane was determined by a modified version  of the transverse momentum method . The charged particles emitted from the collisions between beam ions and the target were detected by the TOF wall detectors. The azimuthal angle $`\mathrm{\Phi }_R`$ of the reaction plane was estimated from the vector $`\stackrel{}{Q}^\nu `$, the weighted sum of the transverse velocity vectors $`\stackrel{}{V}^t`$ of all charged fragments detected in each collision:

$$\stackrel{}{Q}^\nu =\underset{i}{}\nu _i\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{V}^t}{|\stackrel{}{V}^t|}\right)_i$$
(1)   
where the weight $`\nu _i`$ depends on the pulse height of the ith charged particle. The values of the $`\nu _i`$ are positive for $`\alpha \alpha _0`$ and zero for $`\alpha <\alpha _0`$, where the quantity $`\alpha (Y/Y_p)_{CM}`$ is the rapidity $`Y`$ normalized to the projectile rapidity $`Y_p`$ in the center-of-mass system, and $`\alpha _0`$ is a threshold rapidity. The rapidity $`Y`$ of a charged particle with an identified Z was calculated with an assumption that its mass is the mass of proton, $`{}_{}{}^{4}He`$, and $`{}_{}{}^{7}Li`$, respectively, for $`Z=1,2`$, and $`Z>2`$. The dispersion angle $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _R`$, the angle between the estimated and true reaction planes, is defined  as

$$\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _R=\frac{V_x^{}}{V_x}$$
(2)   
where $`V_x^{}`$ and $`V_x`$ are projections of unit vectors onto the estimated and the true reaction plane, respectively. All the results presented in this report are corrected for this dispersion.

The smaller the dispersion angle, the closer the estimated reaction plane to the true one. By averaging the projection of the unit vector $`\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{V}^t}{|\stackrel{}{V}^t|}\right)_i`$ onto the true reaction plane over the total events, one can obtain

$$V_x=\left[\frac{\overline{Q^2W}}{\overline{W(W1)}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}};\stackrel{}{Q}=\underset{i}{}\omega _i\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{V}^t}{|\stackrel{}{V}^t|}\right)_i,W=\underset{i}{}\omega _i,$$
(3)   
where $`i`$ is the particle index. The weight $`\omega _i`$ in the above equation is equal to unity for $`\alpha \alpha _0`$ and is equal to zero for $`\alpha <\alpha _0`$.

The average of the normalized in-plane vector of all charged particles projected onto the estimated reaction plane, $`V_x^{}`$, can be estimated by

$$V_x^{}=\overline{\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{V}^t}{|\stackrel{}{V}^t|}\right)_i\frac{\stackrel{}{Q}_i^\nu }{|\stackrel{}{Q}_i^\nu |}};\stackrel{}{Q_i^\nu }=\underset{ji}{}\nu _j\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{V}^t}{|\stackrel{}{V}^t|}\right)_j$$
(4)   
where the weight $`\nu _j`$ depends on the pulse-height of the charged-particles. The weighting factors $`\nu _j`$ were chosen to minimize the dispersion angle $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _R`$. For different values of $`\nu _j`$, the dispersion angles for La-La collisions at 250 and 400A MeV and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV exhibit a broad minimum (around $`\alpha _0=0.2`$) as a function of the threshold rapidity $`\alpha _0`$; to minimize the dispersion, we chose $`\alpha _0=0.2`$.

Figure 3 shows a typical pulse-height spectrum for one of the 184 TOF wall detectors for La-La collisions at 400A MeV. The peak labelled $`Z=1`$ is from hydrogen isotopes; that labelled $`Z=2`$ is from helium isotopes. The third and the following peaks labelled $`Z>2`$ represent charged particles with $`Z>2`$. Based on these peaks, three different sets of weights were tuned to estimate the reaction plane closest to the true reaction plane. Figure 4 shows the dispersion angles obtained at different sets of weights for La-La collisions at 400A MeV. The uncertainties in this figure were not calculated because our main interest was to minimize the values of the dispersion angles. In this work, ten sets of weights (as shown in Fig. 4) were used to calculate the dispersion angles. The weights 1, 2, and 2.5 for $`Z=1,Z=2,`$ and $`Z>2`$ isotopes, respectively, yielded a minimum value for the dispersion $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _R`$ in $`\varphi _R`$. With these weights, the dispersion angles from equation (2) were found to be $`31.3^{}\pm 2.4^{}`$ and $`33.8^{}\pm 2.3^{}`$ for La-La collisions at 400 and 250A MeV, respectively, and $`39.8^{}\pm 3.0^{}`$ for Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV. Without the charged-particle identification ($`i.e.`$, $`\nu _j=1`$), equation (4) corresponds to that in references ; the dispersion angles were about 3 larger in these three sets of data. After the azimuthal angle $`\varphi _R`$ of the reaction plane was determined, the neutron azimuthal angle relative to the reaction plane ($`\varphi \varphi _R`$) was obtained for each event.

### B Determination of the Flow Axis

To study the emission patterns and the event shapes of the fragments, the sphericity method  was used. From a set of charged particles in the center-of-mass system for each event, a sphericity tensor is defined as

$$F_{ij}=\underset{\nu }{}\frac{1}{2m_\nu }\frac{V_i^\nu V_j^\nu }{|V^\nu |^2},$$
(5)   
where $`m_\nu `$ is the mass of the $`\nu ^{th}`$ fragment, which can be one of the proton-like ($`Z=1`$), helium-like ($`Z=2`$), or “lithium-like” ($`Z>2`$) particles identified by pulse-heights in the TOF wall as mentioned in the previous section. In the sphericity calculation, we omitted all tracks in the backward rapidity range ($`\alpha <0`$), then we projected the tracks in the forward rapidity range ($`\alpha >0`$) to the backward rapidity range, $`\stackrel{}{V}\stackrel{}{V}`$. Our sphericity calculations reconstructed polar flow angles, which allowed neutron squeeze-out to become visible. By diagonalizing the flow tensor in the center-of-mass system, the event shape can be approximated as a prolate (or cigar-shaped) ellipsoid. The angle between the major axis of the flow ellipsoid and the beam axis is defined as a flow angle $`\theta _F`$.

Quantitatively, the flow angle  was obtained as a polar angle corresponding to the maximum eigenvalues of the flow tensor. Figure 5 shows the distribution of the flow angle $`\theta _F`$ for La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV with the same impact parameter. For Nb-Nb and La-La collisions at the same energy, the peak of the neutron flow angle distribution moves to a larger angle as the mass of the system increases. This trend to larger flow angles with increasing target-projectile mass was observed previously for charged particles  by the Plastic Ball Spectrometer, and predicted qualitatively from Vlasov-Uehling-Uhlenbeck calculations .

## IV Results

### A Neutron Triple-Differential Cross Sections

The results of the triple-differential cross sections, $`d^3\sigma /d\alpha d\mathrm{cos}\theta d(\varphi \varphi _R)`$, for neutrons emitted at a polar angle $`\theta `$ with a normalized center-of-mass rapidity $`\alpha (Y/Y_p)_{CM}`$ (in units of the projectile rapidity $`Y_p`$) are presented as a function of the azimuthal angle ($`\varphi \varphi _R`$) with respect to the reaction plane. The data were summed in four rapidity bins ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha `$) for each detector: backward rapidities ($`1.0\alpha <0.2`$), mid-rapidities ($`0.2\alpha <0.2`$), intermediate-forward rapidities ($`0.2\alpha <0.7`$), and projectile-like rapidities ($`0.7\alpha <1.2`$). The uncertainties in the triple-differential cross sections include both statistical and systematic uncertainties; however, statistical uncertainties dominate systematic uncertainties .

Figure 6 shows the triple-differential cross sections for neutrons emitted in the backward rapidity bin at a polar angle of 72 for La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV. The cross sections in this rapidity bin have a minimum at $`(\varphi \varphi _R)=0^{}`$ and a maximum at $`(\varphi \varphi _R)=\pm 180^{}`$. Similar characteristics can be found at other polar angles, ranging from 3 to 80.

Figure 7 shows the neutron triple-differential cross sections for the mid-rapidity bin at one of the polar angles (viz., $`\theta =48^{}`$) for La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV. In this bin, the neutrons are aligned perpendicular to the reaction plane at $`(\varphi \varphi _R)=\pm 90^{}`$ (so called squeeze-out) ; however, this effect is barely noticeable in our figures. Rotating the event onto the flow axis enhances our ability to see the squeeze-out effect .

Figure 8 shows the neutron triple-differential cross sections for the projectile rapidity bin at a polar angle 16 (as an example) for La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV. At each polar angle, the azimuthal distribution for this rapidity bin peaks at $`(\varphi \varphi _R)=0^{}`$ and has a minimum at $`(\varphi \varphi _R)=\pm 180^{}`$. The peak at 0 is the result of the side-splash and bounce-off effects, where bounce-off cannot be separated clearly from the side-splash. The resulting cross sections in these projectile rapidities also have contributions from both participants and spectators like those at target or backward rapidities; however, the side-splash dominates at the larger polar angles where the collisions are more central because of the multiplicity cut chosen for this analysis.

Finally, Fig. 9 shows the neutron triple-differential cross sections for the intermediate-forward rapidity bin at the polar angle 20 for La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV. The distributions at small polar angles in this rapidity bin reflect the distributions in the mid-rapidity bin. The larger the polar angles, the more noticeable the peaks at $`(\varphi \varphi _R)=0^{}`$ and the distributions become more like the distributions from the projectile rapidity regions.

### B Average In-plane Momentum

Figure 10 shows the mean transverse momentum projected into the reaction plane, $`P_x`$, for neutrons as a function of normalized center-of-mass rapidity, $`\alpha =(Y/Y_p)_{CM}`$, for La-La collisions at an energy of 400 and 250A MeV. The technique of extracting the $`P_x`$ for neutrons can be found in reference .

The data display the typical S-shaped behavior as described by Danielewicz and Odyniec . Neutrons in the low-energy regions (below $``$ 55 MeV) were not included in order to eliminate background contamination; thus, the curve is not completely symmetric and the slope of the average in-plane transverse momentum at negative rapidities is steeper than that at positive rapidities because the cut on the low energy neutrons rejects neutrons with low transverse momenta at negative rapidities. From Fig. 10, the average in-plane momentum increases with increasing bombarding energies.

In the positive rapidity region, the $`P_x`$ vs $`\alpha `$ curves are straight lines up to $`\alpha =0.5`$. We extracted the slope at mid-rapidity (up to $`\alpha =0.5`$) with a linear fit to $`P_x`$ in the region unaffected by the cut on the neutron energy; Doss et al. defined this slope as the flow F. Because the flow is determined at mid-rapidity, it has contributions only from the participants. The flows found in this analysis are $`145\pm 11`$ and $`104\pm 13`$ MeV/c from La-La collisions at 400 and 250A MeV, respectively. From these data, we see that the neutron flow increases with increasing beam energy. Previously, Doss et al. observed that the flow of charged particles increases with beam energy, reaches a broad maximum at about 650A MeV, and falls off slightly at higher energies.

### C Neutron Squeeze Out

One of the results of this experiment is the observation of neutrons emitted preferentially in a direction perpendicular to the reaction plane. In their paper reporting this component of collective flow for charge particles, Gutbrod et al. called this collective phenomenon out-of-plane squeeze out.

To see neutron squeeze out, we performed two coordinate rotations: First, we rotated the x coordinate around the beam or z-axis to align it with the summed transverse-velocity vector $`\stackrel{}{Q}`$ given by equation (3); second, we rotated the z-axis around the y-axis by the flow angle $`\mathrm{\Theta }_F`$. After this second rotation, the $`z^{}`$-axis of the new $`x^{}y^{}z^{}`$ coordinates, where $`y^{}=y`$, is on the major axis of flow ellipsoid. Then, for neutrons with transverse momenta $`p_z^{}`$ in the region $`0.1p_z^{}<0.1`$, where $`p_z^{}=(P_z^{}/P_{proj}^{})_{CM}`$, neutron squeeze out became visible as a peak at azimuthal angles $`\varphi ^{}=\pm 90^{}`$ for the distribution in the $`x^{}y^{}`$-plane. Figure 11 shows the neutron azimuthal distributions in the $`x^{}y^{}`$-coordinates or neutron squeeze-out of three systems: La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV. The spectator neutrons are excluded from Fig. 11 by removing neutrons of high and low momenta at small angles. By excluding spectator neutrons  emitted from the projectile and the target, neutrons evaporated  from an excited projectile at small polar angles ($`\theta 8^{}`$) were excluded also. Squeeze out of neutrons was observed previously for Au-Au collisions at 400A MeV.

## V Theoretical Comparisons

Welke et al.  examined the sensitivity of $`d\sigma /d\varphi `$ to the nuclear matter equation of state. Because there was a net flow in the projectile and target rapidity bins, Welke et al. described the shapes of the azimuthal distribution by the ratio of the maximum cross section $`(d\sigma /d\varphi )_{max}`$ to the minimum cross section $`(d\sigma /d\varphi )_{min}`$.

For each polar angle, the cross sections measured in the experiment are fitted with the function, $`\sigma _3(\varphi \varphi _R,\theta )=a(\theta )\pm b^{}(\theta )\mathrm{cos}(\varphi \varphi _R)`$, where the $`+()`$ sign stands for positive (negative) rapidity bin, and $`b^{}(\theta )=b(\theta )e^{(\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _R)^2/2}`$ is the correction for a finite rms dispersion $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _R`$. For positive rapidity particles, the cross sections peak at $`(\varphi \varphi _R)=0^{}`$ and deplete at $`(\varphi \varphi _R)=\pm 180^{}`$, as seen in Fig. 8. The maximum azimuthal anisotropy for positive rapidity neutrons becomes $`r(\theta )=\left[a(\theta )+b(\theta )\right]/\left[a(\theta )b(\theta )\right]`$. Figure 12 is the polar-angle-dependent maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio $`r(\theta )`$ for the four sets of data as indicated; the data for Au-Au collisions at 400A MeV are from Elaasar et al. . From Fig. 12, the maximum azimuthal anisotropy appears to be independent of both the mass of the colliding nuclei and the beam energy.

For theoretical comparison, we used the Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) approach  with a parameterization of a momentum-dependent nuclear mean field suggested in reference . In the calculations, the incompressibility modulus $`K`$ was set to be 215 MeV, and the contributions to the cross sections from composite fragments were subtracted by rejecting neutrons when the distance between the neutron and another nucleon from the same BUU ensemble  was less than a critical value $`d_c`$ . Within a given BUU run, a nucleon was considered free only if no other nucleons were found within the critical distance $`d_c`$. We are justified in restricting our coalescence criterion to coordinate space as nucleons that are far apart in momentum space will have drifted away from each other. Our analysis is performed at the time that the momentum space distributions begin to freeze-out. Also we have verified quantitatively the soundness of this argument by performing a full six-dimensional coalescence. It is well known from transport theory calculations that the transverse momentum generation in heavy-ion reactions begins quite early in the history of the reaction and then saturates . For free neutrons, the critical distance $`d_c`$ was chosen to be 2.8 fm for both Nb-Nb and La-La at 400A MeV and 3.0 fm for La-La at 250A MeV by fitting the polar-angle dependence of the double-differential cross sections. The double-differential cross sections in the rapidity $`0.7\alpha <1.2`$ bin for La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at beam energy 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV are shown in Fig. 13. The filled symbols represent the data, and the open symbols represent the BUU calculations. The BUU calculations (with $`d_c=0`$ fm) of the double differential cross sections are significantly higher than the data because the data do not include the composite fragments; in other words, the data contain free neutrons only. For $`d_c=2.8`$ fm, the BUU prediction is lower than the data at small polar angles because the BUU calculations do not treat neutron evaporation which occurs at polar angles below $`9^{}`$, as observed previously by Madey et al. .

By restricting the BUU calculations to free neutrons with $`K=215`$ MeV, the triple-differential cross sections are compared with data. Figures 6 – 9 show triple-differential cross sections for four rapidity regions: $`1.0\alpha <0.2`$, $`0.2\alpha <0.2`$, $`0.7\alpha <1.2`$, $`0.2\alpha <0.7`$. In these figures, the open symbols represent the BUU calculations. The solid line in each figure represents the data corrected to zero dispersion $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _R=0`$. In these calculations, the negative $`(\varphi \varphi _R)`$ region is symmetric with respect to the positive side. In Fig. 6, the BUU results are higher than the data beyond $`(\varphi \varphi _R)=90^{}`$. In Fig. 7, the BUU results tend to peak at $`(\varphi \varphi _R)=90^{}`$; in other words, the BUU results show the characteristics of the out-of-plane squeeze-out effect for free neutrons in the mid-rapidity bin, but it is very hard to see the squeeze-out phenomena in the rapidity coordinates (see section IV C). In Figs. 8 and 9, the BUU results generally agree with the data in these positive rapidity bins.

The BUU calculations of the polar-angle dependence of the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio $`r(\theta )`$ for free neutrons emitted from Nb-Nb, La-La, and Au-Au collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV are shown in Fig. 14 for $`(b_{max}/2R)=0.5`$. The BUU results for Au-Au collisions at 400A MeV are from Elaasar et al. . In this figure, the BUU calculations with $`K=380,215,150`$ MeV were carried out for free neutrons (with $`d_c=2.8`$ fm for Nb-Nb and La-La collisions and $`d_c=3.2`$ fm for Au-Au collisions). Consistent with the experimental data (see Fig. 12), the BUU calculations in Fig. 14 show little sensitivity to the mass and the beam energy. The BUU calculations of the polar-angle-dependent maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio $`r(\theta )`$ for free neutrons emitted from La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV are compared with the data in Fig. 15. The multiplicity cuts indicated in this figure correspond to the ratio of the maximum impact parameter to the nuclear radius $`(b_{max}/2R)=0.5`$. The filled and open symbols in this figure represent the data and the BUU calculations (with $`K=150,215,380`$ MeV), respectively. Both the experimental results and the BUU calculations were for zero dispersion $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _R=0`$. As one can see from this figure, the polar-angle dependence of the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio $`r(\theta )`$ is insensitive to the incompressibility modulus $`K`$ in the nuclear equation of state. This insensitivity was noted also in Ref.

Figure 16 is the comparison between data and the BUU calculations with $`K=215`$ MeV for in-plane transverse momentum $`P_x`$ for free neutrons emitted from La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV. Similar to the other figures, the filled symbols and open symbols represent the data and the BUU calculations, respectively. The BUU calculations generally agree with the data within their uncertainties, especially in the mid-rapidity region which gives the information about flow in the unit of MeV/c (see section IV B).

Another observable obtained from BUU calculations is the out-of-plane squeeze-out of free neutrons. The comparisons are depicted in Fig. 17 for La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV. The solid lines represent the data. The dotted, dashed, and dot-dashed lines represent the BUU calculations with $`K=380,215,`$ and 150 MeV, respectively. All three lines are almost on top of each other in La-La collisions at 250A MeV. The squeeze out of neutrons in the normalized momentum coordinates in the center-of-mass system is compared with the BUU model. Both the experimental results and the BUU calculations are for zero dispersion $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _R=0^{}`$. After correcting to zero dispersion in the experimental results, the neutron squeeze-out becomes larger. It can be seen from Fig. 17 that the squeeze-out of free neutrons from BUU calculations is insensitive to the incompressibility modulus $`K`$. From the comparison between the BUU calculations and the neutron squeeze-out in Fig. 17, the squeeze-out effect from the experimental data in this work is significantly stronger than that from the BUU calculations with $`K=380,215,150`$ MeV. It remains to be seen whether the apparent disagreement between the BUU squeeze-out results and the data persist as greater statistics and accuracy are reached for the calculations. We estimate the present uncertainties to be of the order of 25%. Statistically meaningful calculations of squeeze-out in BUU remain challenging as the effect truly needs to be established at a level past fluctuations.

## VI Conclusions

We measured triple-differential cross sections of neutrons emitted at several polar angles in multiplicity-selected La-La collisions at 250 and 400A MeV (and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV) as a function of the azimuthal angle with respect to the reaction plane. We compared the measured cross sections with BUU calculations for free neutrons; the BUU calculations (with an incompressibility modulus $`K=215`$ MeV) agree with the measured cross sections, except for the smallest polar angle where the BUU calculations do not treat neutron evaporation.

The La-La data at 400A MeV permitted us to extend our ealier studies of the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio as a probe of the nuclear equation of state, and to conclude that the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio is insensitive to the beam energy from 250 to 400A MeV for the La-La system. The uncertainties in the measurement of the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio are about 15% which do not allow us to investigate its dependence on the mass of the projectile-target system. BUU calculations confirm the lack of sensitivity of the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio to the mass of the colliding system and to the beam energy. BUU calculations suggest also that the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio is insensitive to the incompressibility modulus K in the nuclear equation of state.

The flow of neutrons was extracted from the slope at mid-rapidity of the curve of the average in-plane momentum verses the neutron center-of-mass rapidity. The flow of neutrons emitted in La-La collisions at 250 and 400A MeV increases with beam energy. BUU calculations with with an incompressibility modulus $`K=215`$ MeV for free neutrons agree generally with the data.

We observed the preferential emission of neutrons in a direction perpendicular to the reaction plane in three systems \[viz. 400 and 250A MeV La-La, and 400A MeV Nb-Nb\]. This component of collective flow, observed first for charged particles is known as out-of-plane squeeze out. BUU calculations of out-of-plane squeeze out of free neutrons are insensitive to the incompressibility modulus K for values of 150, 215, and 380 MeV. After correcting the experimental results to zero dispersion, the observed squeeze out of neutrons is significantly stronger than that from BUU theory.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. PHY-91-07064, PHY-88-02392, and PHY-86-11210, the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG89ER40531 and DE-AC03-76SF00098, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and by the Fonds FCAR of the Quebec Government.