English

NuclearConfectionery: Multi-stage Simulation Framework for Modeling Relativistic Heavy-ion Collisions

Nuclear Theory 2025-12-01 v1 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Nuclear Experiment

Abstract

We present the NuclearConfectionery, a modular framework for simulating the full dynamical evolution of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Its core hydrodynamic module, CCAKE 2.0, represents a major advance over previous SPH-based relativistic hydrodynamic codes. CCAKE 2.0 simultaneously evolves energy-momentum and multiple conserved charges (B, S, Q) with a four-dimensional equation of state, and can be run in either Cartesian or hyperbolic coordinates, enabling consistent simulations from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan to LHC energies. We have implemented a particlization module that supports global BSQ charge conservation on the freeze-out surface; the resulting hadron ensemble is then propagated through a hadronic transport afterburner. A source term is included in the equations of motion to couple jets to the fluid, allowing simultaneous bulk and hard-probe evolution or, alternatively, for stopped baryons at low beam energies. The framework offers flexible choices of equations of motion (Israel-Stewart, DNMR, ADNH) and transport coefficients, along with GPU-ready performance via Kokkos/Cabana, offline equation of state inversion for 4D tables, and containerized portability. We validate the code with semi-analytical benchmarks (including BSQ Gubser and Landau-Khalatnikov solutions) and extensive convergence studies. The NuclearConfectionery provides a user-friendly, high-performance, open-source tool for event-by-event simulations across collision energies, offering flexibility to study QCD matter at both vanishing and finite densities.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.22852,
  title  = {NuclearConfectionery: Multi-stage Simulation Framework for Modeling Relativistic Heavy-ion Collisions},
  author = {Kevin P. Pala and Surkhab Kaur Virk and Dekrayat Almaalol and Isabella Danhoni and Nanxi Yao and Isaac Long and Willian Serenone and Jordi Salinas San Martín and Alayna A. Yared and Christopher Plumberg and Fernando Gardim and Jacquelyn Noronha-Hostler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.22852},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

111 Pages, 35 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:58:45.404Z