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

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.