English

Characterizing the initial state of hydrodynamics in pp and pA collisions

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2025-11-07 v1 Nuclear Theory

Abstract

The observation of seeming hydrodynamic-like behavior in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions presents us with the conceptual problem of how the initial state of such a hydrodynamic evolution should be characterized. This is an issue because, while nuclei can reasonably be approximated as ``large'' systems w.r.t. the characteristic Fermi momentum of their constituents, this is no longer true for nucleons. Hence, one would need to match a ``quantum'' theory, whose observables are described via highly non-commuting operators, to a ``classical'' hydrodynamics. Operationally assuming a ``fast'' thermalization, we survey what kind of object is best suited to such a matching condition. We show that it cannot be any of the objects usually associated with ``the 3D structure of the nucleon'' but rather a measure associated with entanglement entropy.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.03851,
  title  = {Characterizing the initial state of hydrodynamics in pp and pA collisions},
  author = {Gabriel Rabelo-Soares and Gojko Vujanovic and Giorgio Torrieri},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.03851},
  year   = {2025}
}

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