Probe nuclear structure using the anisotropic flow at the Large Hadron Collider
Zhiyong Lu, M. Zhao, Xiaomei Li, J. Jia, Y. Zhou
Abstract
Abstract Recent studies have shown that the shape and radial profile of the colliding nuclei have strong influences on the initial condition of the heavy ion collisions and the subsequent development of the anisotropic flow. Using A Multi-Phase Transport model (AMPT) model, we investigated the impact of nuclear quadrupole deformation $$\beta _2$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>β</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> and nuclear diffuseness $$a_0$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>a</mml:mi> <mml:mn>0</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> of $$^{129}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow/> <mml:mn>129</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:math> Xe on various of flow observables in Xe–Xe collisions at $$\sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}}=$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msqrt> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> <mml:mtext>NN</mml:mtext> </mml:msub> </mml:msqrt> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> 5.44 TeV. We found that $$\beta _2$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>β</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> has a strong influence on central collisions while $$a_0$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>a</mml:mi> <mml:mn>0</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> mostly influences the mid-central collisions. The relative change of flow observables induced by a change in $$\beta _2$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>β</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> and $$a_0$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>a</mml:mi> <mml:mn>0</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> are also found to be insensitive to the values of parameters controlling the strength of the interaction among final state particles. Our study demonstrates the potential for constraining the initial condition of heavy ion collisions using future system scans at the LHC.