Beam Fragmentation in Heavy Ion Collisions with Realistically Correlated Nuclear Configurations

TL;DR

This paper presents a new Monte Carlo approach to model spectator nucleon production in heavy ion collisions, emphasizing the role of short-range nuclear correlations and their impact on energy transfer and nucleon momentum distributions.

Contribution

It introduces a realistic nuclear configuration generator with short-range correlations into Glauber theory, improving predictions of spectator nucleon emissions in heavy ion collisions.

Findings

Short-range correlations dominate energy transfer mechanisms.

Predicted angular asymmetry in emitted nucleons along the impact parameter.

Nucleon momentum distribution shape depends on collision centrality.

Abstract

We develop a new approach to production of the spectator nucleons in the heavy ion collisions. The energy transfer to the spectator system is calculated using the Monte Carlo based on the updated version of our generator of configurations in colliding nuclei which includes a realistic account of short-range correlations in nuclei. The transferred energy distributions are calculated within the framework of the Glauber multiple scattering theory, taking into account all the individual inelastic and elastic collisions using an independent realistic calculation of the potential energy contribution of each of the nucleon-nucleon pairs to the total potential. We show that the dominant mechanism of the energy transfer is tearing apart pairs of nucleons with the major contribution coming from the short-range correlations. We calculate the momentum distribution of the emitted nucleons which is strongly affected by short range correlations including its dependence on the azimuthal angle. In particular, we predict a strong angular asymmetry along the direction of the impact parameter b, providing a unique opportunity to determine the direction of b. Also, we predict a strong dependence of the shape of the nucleon momentum distribution on the centrality of the nucleus-nucleus collision.