Non-Equilibrium and Collective Flow Effects in Relativistic Heavy Ion   Collisions
  We discuss the problems involved in extracting the nuclear equation-of-state from heavy-ion collisions. We demonstrate that the equation of state becomes effectively softer in non-equilibrium and this effect is observable in terms of collective flow effects. Thus, non-equilibrium effects must be included in transport descriptions on the level of the effective mean fields. A comparison with transverse momentum, rapidity, and centrality selected flow data show the reliability and limitations of the underlying interaction which was derived from microscopic Dirac-Brueckner (DB) results. 
T. Gaitanos, H.H. Wolter (Univ. Muenchen), C. Fuchs (Univ. Tuebingen)