Impact of nuclear structure on longitudinal flow decorrelations in high-energy isobar collisions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that longitudinal flow decorrelations in heavy-ion collisions are sensitive to nuclear structure differences, such as deformation and skin thickness, providing a novel method to probe nuclear properties.

Contribution

It reveals that flow decorrelations can be used as a new tool to investigate the nuclear structure of colliding ions in high-energy collisions.

Findings

Flow decorrelations are sensitive to nuclear deformation in central collisions.

Differences in skin thickness affect flow decorrelations in mid-central collisions.

Longitudinal flow decorrelations serve as a new probe of nuclear structure.

Abstract

Fluctuations of harmonic flow along pseudorapidity, known as flow decorrelations, are an important probe of the initial state geometry of the quark-gluon plasma. The flow decorrelations are shown to be sensitive to the collective structure of the colliding nuclei, as revealed clearly by comparing collisions of isobars, $^{96}$Ru+$^{96}$Ru and $^{96}$Zr+$^{96}$Zr, which have different nuclear structures. The flow decorrelations in central collisions are mostly sensitive to nuclear deformations, while those in the mid-central collisions are primarily sensitive to differences in skin thickness between $^{96}$Ru and $^{96}$Zr. Longitudinal flow decorrelations in heavy-ion collisions are a new tool to probe the structure of colliding nuclei.