Influence of nuclear structure in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper reviews how nuclear structure influences initial states and observable outcomes in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, offering a novel approach to study nuclear properties through collision experiments.

Contribution

It highlights the potential of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions as a new platform to investigate nuclear structure effects via final-state observables.

Findings

Nuclear structure impacts initial geometry and fluctuations.

Initial state asymmetries transfer to final momentum distributions.

Heavy-ion collisions can serve as a novel nuclear structure probe.

Abstract

Many probes are proposed to determine the quark-gluon plasma and explore its properties in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Some of them are related to initial states of the collisions, such as collective flow, Hanbury-Brown-Twiss (HBT) correlation, chiral magnetic effects and so on. The initial states can come from geometry overlap of the colliding nuclei, fluctuations or nuclear structure with the intrinsic geometry asymmetry. The initial geometry asymmetry can transfer to the final momentum distribution in the aspect of hydrodynamics during the evolution of the fireball. Different from traditional methods for nuclear structure study, the ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions could provide a potential platform to investigate nuclear structures with the help of the final-state observables after the fireball expansion. This chapter first presents a brief introduction of the initial states in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, and then delivers a mini-review for the nuclear structure effects on experimental observables in the relativistic energy domain.