Probing coalescence of light nuclei via femtoscopy and azimuthal anisotropies

TL;DR

This paper investigates the formation of light nuclei in heavy-ion collisions using a combination of coalescence, femtoscopy, and anisotropy measurements, enhanced by hybrid modeling and comparison with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining coalescence, femtoscopy, and hybrid modeling to study light nuclei formation and anisotropies in heavy-ion collisions.

Findings

Calculated anisotropic coefficients match experimental data.

Femtoscopy results provide insights into cluster formation times.

Hybrid models improve understanding of nucleon and nucleus correlations.

Abstract

The production mechanism of light nuclei in heavy-ion collisions is vital to understanding the intricate details of nucleon-nucleon interactions. The coalescence of nucleons is a well-known mechanism that attempts to explain the production mechanism of these light clusters. This work investigates the formation mechanism of these nucleon clusters with a combination of coalescence and femtoscopy of nucleons and nuclei. It is achieved by appending a coalescence and correlation afterburner (\texttt{CRAB}) to the \texttt{SMASH} transport model. To have a proper view of the anisotropy of light nuclei clusters, a mean-field approach to \texttt{SMASH} is applied. The anisotropic coefficients of various light nuclei clusters are calculated and compared to experimental measurements. To incorporate hydrodynamics into the picture, the anisotropic measurements are completed in a hybrid \texttt{SMASH}+\texttt{vHLLE} mode. In both approaches, the femtoscopy of nucleons and light nuclei is performed, reported with CRAB, and compared to the latest experimental measurements. An insight into cluster formation time is drawn by extracting the emission source size with the Lednick\'y-Lyuboshits (LL) model.