Two-Particle Correlations in Heavy-Light Ion Collisions

TL;DR

This paper investigates two-particle long-range correlations in heavy-light ion collisions using the saturation framework, identifying various correlation types and their dependence on collision geometry, with implications for disentangling different correlation sources.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive calculation of two-gluon production cross sections including all-order saturation effects and introduces a novel $k_T$-factorized form involving Wigner distributions.

Findings

Identification of four types of long-range correlations.

Geometric correlations depend on collision orientation.

New $k_T$-factorized expression involving Wigner distributions.

Abstract

We study the initial, high-energy scatterings in heavy ion collisions using the saturation/Color Glass Condensate framework. We focus on two-particle long-range rapidity correlations which are modeled as two-gluon correlations. We calculate the two-gluon production cross section using the saturation framework in the heavy-light ion regime, including all-order saturation effects in the heavy nucleus while considering only two-orders in the light ion. The two-gluon production cross section generates four types of long-range in rapidity correlations: (i) geometric correlations, (ii) Hanbury Brown and Twiss (HBT) like correlations accompanied by a back-to-back maximum, (iii) near-side correlations, and (iv) away-side azimuthal correlations. The geometric correlations (i) are due to the fact that nucleons are correlated by simply being confined within the same nucleus. Correlations (iii) and (iv) have exactly the same amplitudes along with azimuthal and rapidity shapes: one centered around $\Delta \phi =0$ and the other one centered around $\Delta \phi =\pi$ (here $\Delta \phi$ is the azimuthal angle between the two produced gluons). The geometry dependence of the correlation function leads to stronger azimuthal near- and away-side correlations in the tip-on-tip U+U collisions than in the side-on-side U+U collisions, an exactly opposite behavior from the correlations generated by the elliptic flow of the quark-gluon plasma: a study of azimuthal correlations in the U+U collisions may help to disentangle the two sources of correlations. Finally we rewrite our result for the two-gluon production cross-section in a $k_T$-factorized form resulting in an expression involving a convolution of one- and two-gluon Wigner distributions over the transverse momenta and impact parameters. This differs from the $k_T$-factorized forms used in the literature.