Imaging the structure of atomic nuclei in high-energy nuclear collisions from STAR experiment
Abstract
In relativistic heavy-ion collisions, the extractions of properties of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) are hindered by a limited understanding of its initial conditions, where the nuclear structure of the colliding ions play a significant role. In these proceedings, we present the first quantitative demonstration using ``collective flow assisted nuclear shape imaging" method to extract the quadrupole deformation and triaxiality from 238U using data from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). We achieve this by comparing bulk observables in 238U+238U collisions with nearly spherical 197Au+197Au collisions. A similar comparative measurement performed in collisions of 96Ru+96Ru and 96Zr+96Zr, suggests the presence of moderate quadrupole deformation of 96Ru, large octupole deformation of 96Zr, as well as an apparent neutron skin difference between these two species. The prospect of this nuclear shape imaging method as a novel tool for the study of nuclear structure is also elaborated.
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