Detecting nuclear mass distribution in isobar collisions via charmonium

Abstract

The collective properties of final state hadrons produced in the high statistics $_{44}^{96}$Ru+$_{44}^{96}$Ru and $_{40}^{96}$Zr+$_{40}^{96}$Zr collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 200~\mathrm{GeV}$ are found to be significantly different. Such differences were argued to be precise probes of the difference in nucleon distribution in the isobar nuclei. We investigate the $J/\psi$ production in the isobar collision via a relativistic transport approach. By comparing the isobar systems according to equal centrality bin and equal multiplicity bin, we find that the yield ratio of $J/\psi$ is sensitive to the differences in both the number of binary collisions and the medium evolution. Besides, the elliptic flow $v_2$ of $J/\psi$ is qualitatively different from the light hadrons, and the ratio between Ru+Ru and Zr+Zr collisions is sensitive to the medium evolution. The charmonium production provides an independent probe to study the nucleon distribution in the isobar system.