Light-Ion Collisions: Bridging Small and Large QCD Systems
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2026-05-11 v1 Nuclear Experiment
Nuclear Theory
Abstract
Light-ion collisions at the LHC bridge the gap between small proton-proton and large heavy-ion collision systems, providing a unique laboratory to study the onset of QCD collective phenomena. The first light-ion run at the LHC took place July~1--9, 2025, with proton-oxygen (pO), oxygen-oxygen (OO), and neon-neon (NeNe) collisions. Early experimental results provide strong evidence of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) formation in these small systems. I review the motivation for the light-ion collisions and the first experimental results, connecting perturbative QCD, hot QCD, and low-energy nuclear structure physics.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.07578,
title = {Light-Ion Collisions: Bridging Small and Large QCD Systems},
author = {Aleksas Mazeliauskas},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.07578},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures, contribution to the 2026 QCD session of the 60th Rencontres de Moriond