Nuclear geometry driven symmetry plane correlations in OO and Ne--Ne collisions at the Large Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This study investigates symmetry-plane correlations in OO and Ne--Ne collisions at the LHC, revealing nuclear shape effects and deformation signatures through simulations and model analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of nuclear geometry-driven symmetry-plane correlations in light-ion collisions using advanced simulation methods.

Findings

Ne--Ne collisions show larger $ ext{cos}[4( ext{psi}_2 - ext{psi}_4)]$ correlations than OO.

OO collisions exhibit larger $ ext{cos}[6( ext{psi}_3 - ext{psi}_6)]$ correlations than Ne--Ne.

Results suggest deformed shapes of $^{20}$Ne and tetrahedral structure of $^{16}$O nuclei.

Abstract

Symmetry-plane correlations (SPCs) are key observables sensitive to the medium's transport properties and are driven by participant-plane correlations (PPCs) in the nuclear overlap region. This study explores the possibility of nuclear-geometry-driven SPCs in Oxygen--Oxygen (OO) and Neon--Neon (Ne--Ne) collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=5.36$ TeV using nuclear geometry simulations based on Nuclear Lattice Effective Field Theory (NLEFT) and Projected Generator Coordinate Method (PGCM) configurations. We investigate $\langle \cos[4(\psi_2 - \psi_4)]\rangle_{\rm GE}$ and $\langle \cos[6(\psi_3 - \psi_6)]\rangle_{\rm GE}$ in OO and Ne--Ne collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=5.36$ TeV using the A Multi-Phase Transport (AMPT) model. We find that Ne--Ne collisions exhibit larger $\langle \cos[4(\psi_2 - \psi_4)]\rangle_{\rm GE}$ values than OO collisions, whereas $\langle \cos[6(\psi_3 - \psi_6)]\rangle_{\rm GE}$ is larger in OO than in Ne--Ne collisions. This behavior indicates a strongly deformed shape of the $^{20}$Ne nucleus and a tetrahedral structure of the $^{16}$O nucleus. We also explore SPCs for events with tip-tip and body-body collision configurations, which further support these findings.