Triple nuclear collisions - a new method to explore the matter properties under new extreme conditions

TL;DR

This paper proposes triple nuclear collisions as a novel experimental approach to explore the QCD phase diagram at high baryonic densities, demonstrating increased baryonic charge and particle production in simulations at RHIC and LHC energies.

Contribution

It introduces a new method of triple nuclear collisions and provides simulation evidence of their potential to reach higher baryonic densities than traditional binary collisions.

Findings

Initial baryonic charge density is tripled in TNC compared to binary collisions.

Proton and Lambda hyperon production increases significantly in TNC.

Baryonic chemical potential is 2-2.5 times higher in TNC at top RHIC energy.

Abstract

We suggest to explore an entirely new method to experimentally and theoretically study the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter based on the triple nuclear collisions (TNC). We simulated the TNC using the UrQMD 3.4 model at the beam center-of-mass collision energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV and $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 2.76$ TeV. It is found that in the most central and simultaneous TNC the initial baryonic charge density is about 3 times higher than the one achieved in the usual binary nuclear collisions at the same energies. As a consequence, the production of protons and $\Lambda$-hyperons is increased by a factor of 2 and 1.5, respectively. Using the MIT Bag model equation we study the evolution of the central cell in TNC and demonstrate that for the top RHIC energy of collision the baryonic chemical potential is 2-2.5 times larger than the one achieved in the binary nuclear collision at the same type of reaction. Based on these estimates, we show that TNC offers an entirely new possibility to study the QCD phase diagram at very high baryonic charge densities.