English

Nuclear cluster structure effect in $^{16}$O+$^{16}$O collisions at the top RHIC energy

Nuclear Theory 2026-02-24 v3 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

Using the improved string-melting version of a Multi-Phase Transport model, we investigated the impact of nuclear geometry of 16^{16}O on anisotropic flows in O+O collisions at sNN=200\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 200 GeV. To evaluate the influence of nuclear structure and potential alpha clustering, we implemented four candidate configurations: Woods-Saxon, tetrahedron, square, and Nuclear Lattice Effective Field Theory. Initial-state geometry is quantified via the eccentricity cumulant ratio ε2{4}/ε2{2}\varepsilon_{2}\{4\}/\varepsilon_{2}\{2\}, which provides a robust and evolution-independent measure sensitive to configuration differences. The model reproduces v2(pT)v_{2}(p_{\rm T}) at low pTp_{\rm T} and v3(pT)v_{3}(p_{\rm T}) across the full pTp_{\rm T} range, with integrated v2{2}v_{2}\{2\} and v3{2}v_{3}\{2\} matching the STAR data, demonstrating that transport dynamics captures the essential collectivity in this intermediate-size system. These findings establish a baseline for extending nuclear-structure studies in O+O collisions to other energies and differential observables within a unified transport model framework.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2404.09780,
  title  = {Nuclear cluster structure effect in $^{16}$O+$^{16}$O collisions at the top RHIC energy},
  author = {Xin-Li Zhao and You Zhou and Zi-Wei Lin and Chao Zhang and Guo-Liang Ma},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.09780},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

An improved AMPT-SM model has been adopted, which is detailed in the new appendix