$Ab$-$initio$ nucleon-nucleon correlations and their impact on high energy $^{16}$O+$^{16}$O collisions

TL;DR

This paper explores how high-energy $^{16}$O+$^{16}$O collisions can reveal detailed many-body properties of nuclear ground states, especially nucleon-nucleon correlations, by linking nuclear structure models with collision simulations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that bulk observables in oxygen collisions are sensitive to nuclear correlations, providing a new experimental approach to study nuclear structure features.

Findings

Elliptic flow depends on nuclear model inputs.

Transverse momentum fluctuations reveal short-range correlations.

Collisions can probe initial nuclear configurations effectively.

Abstract

Investigating nucleon-nucleon correlations inherent to the strong nuclear force is one of the core goals in nuclear physics research. We showcase the unique opportunities offered by collisions of $^{16}$O nuclei at high-energy facilities to reveal detailed many-body properties of the nuclear ground state. We interface existing knowledge about the geometry of $^{16}$O coming from \textit{ab-initio} calculations of nuclear structure with transport simulations of high-energy $^{16}$O+$^{16}$O collisions. Bulk observables in these processes, such as the elliptic flow or the fluctuations of the mean transverse momentum, are found to depend significantly on the input nuclear model and to be sensitive to realistic clustering and short-range repulsive correlations, effectively opening a new avenue to probe these features experimentally. This finding demonstrates collisions of oxygen nuclei as a tool to elucidate initial conditions of small collision systems while fostering connections with effective field theories of nuclei rooted in quantum chromodynamics (QCD).