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Influence of the neutron-skin effect on nuclear isobar collisions at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

Jan Hammelmann, Alba Soto-Ontoso, Massimiliano Alvioli, Hannah Elfner, and Mark Strikman
Phys. Rev. C 101, 061901(R) – Published 30 June 2020

Abstract

The unambiguous observation of a chiral magnetic effect (CME)–driven charge separation is the core aim of the isobar program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), consisting of Zr4096+Zr4096 and Ru4496+Ru4496 collisions at sNN=200 GeV. We quantify the role of the spatial distributions of the nucleons in the isobars on both eccentricity and magnetic field strength within a relativistic hadronic transport approach (simulating many accelerated strongly interacting hadrons, SMASH). In particular, we introduce isospin-dependent nucleon-nucleon spatial correlations in the geometric description of both nuclei, deformation for Ru4496 and the so-called neutron skin effect for the neutron-rich isobar, i.e., Zr4096. The main result of this study is a reduction of the magnetic field strength difference between Ru4496+Ru4496 and Zr4096+Zr4096 by a factor of 2, from 10% to 5% in peripheral collisions when the neutron-skin effect is included. Further, we find an increase of the eccentricity ratio between the isobars by up to 10% in ultracentral collisions as due to the deformation of Ru4496 while neither the neutron skin effect nor the nucleon-nucleon correlations result into a significant modification of this observable with respect to the traditional Woods-Saxon modeling. Our results suggest a significantly smaller CME signal to background ratio for the experimental charge separation measurement in peripheral collisions with the isobar systems than previously expected.

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  • Received 25 October 2019
  • Revised 20 March 2020
  • Accepted 26 May 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.101.061901

©2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Nuclear Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Jan Hammelmann1,2,*, Alba Soto-Ontoso3,†, Massimiliano Alvioli4,5,‡, Hannah Elfner1,2,6,§, and Mark Strikman7,∥

  • 1Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Max-von-Laue-Strasse 1, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  • 2Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Ruth-Moufang-Strasse 1, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  • 3Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA
  • 4Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica, via Madonna Alta 126, I-06128 Perugia, Italy
  • 5Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Perugia, Via A. Pascoli, I-06123, Perugia, Italy
  • 6GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Planckstrasse 1, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany
  • 7Physics Department, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

  • *hammelmann@fias.uni-frankfurt.de
  • ontoso@bnl.gov
  • massimiliano.alvioli@irpi.cnr.it
  • §elfner@fias.uni-frankfurt.de
  • mxs43@psu.edu

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Issue

Vol. 101, Iss. 6 — June 2020

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