Collective Flows of ^16O+^16O Collisions with \alpha-Clustering Configurations

The main purpose of the present work is to discuss whether or not the collective flows in heavy-ion collision at the Fermi energy can be taken as a tool to investigate the cluster configuration in light nuclei. In practice, within an extended quantum molecular dynamics model, four \alpha-clustering (linear chain, kite, square and tetrahedron) configurations of ^16O are employed in the initialization, ^16O+^16O around the Fermi energy (40–60 MeV/nucleon) with impact parameter 1–3 fm are simulated, and the directed and elliptic flows are analyzed. It is found that collective flows are influenced by the different \alpha-clustering configurations, and the directed flow of free protons is more sensitive to the initial cluster configuration than the elliptic flow. Nuclear reaction at the Fermi energy can be taken as a useful way to study cluster configuration in light nuclei.