Open Access

Guangjun Mao, Ludwig Neise, Horst Stöcker, Walter Greiner, Zhuxia Li

• A self-consistent relativistic integral-di erential equation of the Boltzmann- Uehling-Uhlenbeck-type for the N*(1440) resonance is developed based on an effective Lagrangian of baryons interacting through mesons. The closed time-path Green s function technique and semi-classical, quasi-particle and Born approxima- tions are employed in the derivation. The non-equilibrium RBUU-type equation for the N*(1440) is consistent with that of nucleon s and delta s which we derived before. Thus, we obtain a set of coupled equations for the N,Delta and N*(1440) distribution functions. All the N (1440)-relevant in-medium two-body scattering cross sections within the N,Delta and N*(1440) system are derived from the same effective Lagrangian in addition to the mean field and presented analytically, which can be directly used in the study of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The theoreticalprediction of the free pp - pp* (1440) cross section is in good agreement with the experimental data. We calculate the in-medium N+N - N+N* , N* +N - N+N and N*+N - N* +N cross sections in cold nuclear matter up to twice the nuclear matter density. The influence of different choices of the N* N* coupling strengths, which can not be obtained through fitting certain experimental data, are discussed. The results show that the density dependence of predicted in-medium cross sections are sensitive to the N* N* coupling strengths used. An evident density dependence will appear when a large scalar coupling strength of g^(sigma) N*N* is assumed. PACS number(s): 24.10.Cn; 25.70.-z; 21.65.+f