Fluctuations of electromagnetic fields in heavy ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper presents quantum calculations of electromagnetic field fluctuations in heavy ion collisions, revealing significantly smaller fluctuations than classical models predict, which impacts understanding of collision dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces quantum calculations for electromagnetic fluctuations in heavy ion collisions, contrasting them with classical Monte-Carlo predictions and highlighting reduced fluctuation magnitudes.

Findings

Quantum fluctuations are much smaller than classical predictions.

Classical Monte-Carlo overestimates electromagnetic field fluctuations.

Results impact the modeling of electromagnetic effects in heavy ion collisions.

Abstract

We perform quantum calculations of fluctuations of the electromagnetic fields in $AA$ collisions at RHIC and LHC energies. We find that in the quantum picture the field fluctuations are much smaller than predictions of the classical Monte-Carlo simulation with the Woods-Saxon nuclear density.