Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

We demonstrate that proton and pion flow measurements in heavy-ion collisions at incident energies ranging from 1 to 20 GeV per nucleon in the fixed target frame can be used for an accurate determination of the symmetric nuclear matter equation of state at baryon densities equal 2-4 times nuclear saturation density n0. We simulate Au+Au collisions at these energies using a hadronic transport model with an adjustable vector mean-field potential dependent on baryon density nB. We show that the mean field can be parametrized to reproduce a given density dependence of the speed of sound at zero temperature cs2(nB,T=0), which we vary independently in multiple density intervals to probe the differential sensitivity of heavy-ion observables to the equation of state at these specific densities. Recent flow data from the STAR experiment at the center-of-mass energies sNN={3.0,4.5}GeV can be described by our model, and a Bayesian analysis of these data indicates a hard equation of state at nB∈(2,3)n0 and a possible phase transition at nB∈(3,4)n0. More data at sNN=2-5GeV, as well as a more thorough analysis of the model systematic uncertainties will be necessary for a more precise conclusion.