Impact of Nuclear Deformation on Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions: Assessing Consistency in Nuclear Physics across Energy Scales

Giuliano Giacalone, Jiangyong Jia, and Chunjian Zhang
Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 242301 – Published 8 December 2021

Abstract

In the hydrodynamic framework of heavy-ion collisions, elliptic flow v2 is sensitive to the quadrupole deformation β of the colliding ions. This enables one to test whether the established knowledge on the low-energy structure of nuclei is consistent with collider data from high-energy experiments. We derive a formula based on generic scaling laws of hydrodynamics to relate the difference in v2 measured between collision systems that are close in size to the value of β of the respective species. We validate our formula in simulations of U238+U238 and Au197+Au197 collisions at top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energy, and subsequently apply it to experimental data. Using the deformation of U238 from low-energy experiments, we find that RHIC v2 data implies 0.16|β|0.20 for Au197 nuclei, i.e., significantly more deformed than reported in the literature, posing an interesting issue in nuclear phenomenology.

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  • Received 12 May 2021
  • Revised 18 September 2021
  • Accepted 15 November 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.242301

© 2021 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Nuclear Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Giuliano Giacalone1, Jiangyong Jia2,3,*, and Chunjian Zhang2

  • 1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Heidelberg, Philosophenweg 16, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
  • 2Department of Chemistry, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA
  • 3Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11976, USA

  • *Corresponding author. jiangyong.jia@stonybrook.edu

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Issue

Vol. 127, Iss. 24 — 10 December 2021

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