Light nuclei production in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV

TL;DR

This paper models light nuclei production in high-energy Pb+Pb collisions using an extended blast-wave coalescence approach, successfully describing transverse momentum spectra and elliptic flows of deuteron and helium-3.

Contribution

It introduces a phase-space distribution with space-momentum correlation for nucleons, improving the description of light nuclei formation at LHC energies.

Findings

Elliptic flows of deuteron are well described by the model.

High transverse momentum nucleons are more spatially spread when aligned with the reaction plane.

The model reproduces experimental spectra and flow data.

Abstract

Using the coalescence model based on the phase-space distribution of nucleons from an extended blast-wave model that includes the space-momentum correlation of high momentum nucleons, we study the transverse momentum spectra and elliptic flows of deuteron and helium-3 in Pb+Pb collisions at the energy $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV. We find that the measured elliptic flows of deuteron can be satisfactorily described if nucleons of large transverse momenta are more spread in space when their momenta are more aligned along the reaction plane.