Probing the boundary of phase transition of nuclear matter using proton flows in heavy-ion collisions at 2-8 GeV/nucleon

Based on the relativistic transport model ART with the hadronic equation of state extended to have a phase transition via the use of the MIT bag model, properties of phase transition of dense nuclear matter formed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions are investigated. Proton sideward and directed flows are calculated with different equation of states in Au + Au collisions at beam energies of 2, 4, 6 and 8 GeV/nucleon. Compared with AGS experimental data in existence, the boundary of first-order phase transition is roughly confined, i.e., in the range of 2.5-4 times saturation density with temperature about 64-94 MeV. Such constraints are useful for ongoing RHIC Beam Energy Scan-II program to study the QCD matter phase diagram.