Mean free path simulation of three body collisions in the Boltzmann-Nordheim-Vlasov equation

Abstract An extension of the Boltzmann-Nordheim-Vlasov equation to include three body collisions is proposed. A method based on the concept of mean free path is used to simulate the three body collision integral and it is applied to heavy ion collisions. We find that three nucleon scatterings are highly suppressed at low energy due to Pauli blocking but become important for increasing beam energies. The model is applied to study collective flow observables and nucleon production.