Effects of the $\alpha$-cluster structure and the intrinsic momentum component of nuclei on the longitudinal asymmetry in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how nuclear structure and intrinsic momentum distributions influence the longitudinal asymmetry in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, expanding beyond the traditional focus on participant number fluctuations.

Contribution

It introduces the effects of alpha-clustering and intrinsic momentum distribution on longitudinal asymmetry using the AMPT model, providing new insights into initial condition influences.

Findings

Alpha-clustering affects rapidity distribution ratios.

Intrinsic momentum distribution impacts longitudinal asymmetry.

Different initial nuclear configurations lead to measurable asymmetry variations.

Abstract

The longitudinal asymmetry in relativistic heavy ion collisions arises from the fluctuation in the number of nucleons involved. This asymmetry causes a rapidity shift in the center of mass of the participating zone. Both the rapidity shift and the longitudinal asymmetry have been found to be significant at the top CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energy for collisions of identical nuclei, and the longitudinal asymmetry is important for reconstructing the colliding vertex and correcting the rapidity shift. However, much discussion of the longitudinal asymmetry has treated the initial condition as a nonzero momentum contributed only by the number of participants, i.e., the asymmetry depends only on the number of participating nucleons. So we naturally raise a physical problem, can other initial conditions, such as two typical initial conditions for nuclei, geometric configuration, and momentum distribution, provide effects on the longitudinal asymmetry? Therefore, in this work we consider other effects on the longitudinal asymmetry other than the fluctuation in the number of participants, e.g., the {\alpha} clustering structure as well as the intrinsic momentum distribution in the target and projectile nuclei for the collisions in the framework of a multiphase transport (AMPT) model. By introducing systems with different {\alpha}-clustering structure and intrinsic momentum distribution, we calculated the ratio of the rapidity distributions of different systems and extracted expansion coefficients to analyze the difference contributed by these factors. ...