Spicy Gluons (胶麻) 2026: Workshop for Young Scientists on the Quark-Gluon Matter in Extreme Conditions

Evidence of nuclear geometry-driven flow in light-ion collisions at the LHC

Not scheduled

20m

武汉濮锦酒店

Speaker

Mr Zhiyong Lu (CIAE(中国原子能科学研究院))

Description

A central question in strong-interaction physics, governed by quantum chromodynamics (QCD), is whether femto-scale droplets of quark–gluon plasma (QGP) form in small collision systems involving projectiles significantly smaller than heavy ions. Collisions of light ions such as 16O and 20Ne offer a unique opportunity to probe the emergence of collective behavior in QCD matter. This work presents the first measurements of elliptic (v2) and triangular (v3) flow of charged particles in the OO and Ne-Ne collisions at √sNN = 5.36 TeV at the LHC. The hydrodynamic model predictions, explicitly incorporating the nuclear structures of 16O and 20Ne, exhibit a good agreement with the flow measurements presented. The observed increase of v2 in central Ne–Ne collisions relative to OO collisions, driven by the nuclear geometries, highlights the importance of utilizing light nuclei with well-defined geometric shapes to constrain the initial conditions. These findings support the presence of nuclear geometry-driven hydrodynamic flow in light-ion collisions at the LHC.