  Flow observables in heavy-ion reactions at incident energies up to about 1
GeV per nucleon have been shown to be very useful for investigating the
reaction dynamics and for determining the parameters of reaction models based
on transport theory. In particular, the elliptic flow in collisions of
neutron-rich heavy-ion systems emerges as an observable sensitive to the
strength of the symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities. The comparison
of ratios or differences of neutron and proton flows or neutron and hydrogen
flows with predictions of transport models favors an approximately linear
density dependence, consistent with ab-initio nuclear-matter theories.
Extensive parameter searches have shown that the model dependence is comparable
to the uncertainties of existing experimental data. Comprehensive new flow data
of high accuracy, partly also through providing stronger constraints on model
parameters, can thus be expected to improve our knowledge of the equation of
state of asymmetric nuclear matter.
