Isospin fractionation: Equilibrium versus spinodal decomposition

This paper focuses on the isospin properties of the asymmetric nuclear-matter liquid–gas phase transition analyzed in a mean-field approach, using Skyrme effective interactions. We compare two different mechanisms of phase separation for low-density matter: equilibrium and spinodal decomposition. The isospin properties of the phases are deduced from the free-energy curvature, which contains information both on the average isospin content and on the system fluctuations. Some implications on experimentally accessible isospin observables are presented.