Challenge of nuclear transmutation in heavy-ion colliders
Abstract
We investigate the production of secondary nuclei in the hadronic fragmentation and electromagnetic dissociation (EMD) of 20Ne beams at the LHC and 124Xe beams at NICA. For light nuclei at LHC energies, our calculations show that hadronic interactions are the dominant channel for nuclear transmutation. This contrasts with the previously established dominance of EMD in 208Pb-208Pb collisions. For 20Ne-20Ne collisions at s NN=5.36 TeV, we provide calculated cross sections and momentum distributions of produced nuclei such as 4He, 12C, 14N, and 16O. These results are essential for assessing potential contamination of the 20Ne-20Ne event sample by collisions involving other nuclear species. Secondary nuclei will be also produced in the EMD of 124Xe beams at NICA, but they will not contaminate 124Xe-124Xe data.
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