Thermalization at the femtoscale seen in high-energy Pb+Pb collisions

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Samanta, Rupam, Bhatta, Somadutta, Jia, Jiangyong, Luzum, Matthew, Ollitrault, Jean-Yves
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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_version_ 1866914784727793664
author Samanta, Rupam
Bhatta, Somadutta
Jia, Jiangyong
Luzum, Matthew
Ollitrault, Jean-Yves
author_facet Samanta, Rupam
Bhatta, Somadutta
Jia, Jiangyong
Luzum, Matthew
Ollitrault, Jean-Yves
contents A collision between two atomic nuclei accelerated at a speed close to that of light creates a dense system of quarks and gluons. Interactions among them are so strong that they behave collectively like a droplet of fluid of ten-femtometer size, which expands into the vacuum and eventually fragments into thousands of particles. We report a new manifestation of thermalization in recent data from the Large Hadron Collider. Our analysis is based on results from the ATLAS Collaboration, which has measured the variance of the momentum per particle across Pb+Pb collision events with the same particle multiplicity. This variance decreases steeply over a narrow multiplicity range corresponding to central collisions. We provide a simple explanation of this newly-observed phenomenon: For a given multiplicity, the momentum per particle increases with increasing impact parameter. Since a larger impact parameter goes along with a smaller collision volume, this in turn implies that the momentum per particle increases as a function of density, which is a generic consequence of thermalization. Our analysis provides the first direct evidence of this phenomenon at the femtoscale.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2303_15323
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Thermalization at the femtoscale seen in high-energy Pb+Pb collisions
Samanta, Rupam
Bhatta, Somadutta
Jia, Jiangyong
Luzum, Matthew
Ollitrault, Jean-Yves
Nuclear Theory
High Energy Physics - Experiment
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Nuclear Experiment
A collision between two atomic nuclei accelerated at a speed close to that of light creates a dense system of quarks and gluons. Interactions among them are so strong that they behave collectively like a droplet of fluid of ten-femtometer size, which expands into the vacuum and eventually fragments into thousands of particles. We report a new manifestation of thermalization in recent data from the Large Hadron Collider. Our analysis is based on results from the ATLAS Collaboration, which has measured the variance of the momentum per particle across Pb+Pb collision events with the same particle multiplicity. This variance decreases steeply over a narrow multiplicity range corresponding to central collisions. We provide a simple explanation of this newly-observed phenomenon: For a given multiplicity, the momentum per particle increases with increasing impact parameter. Since a larger impact parameter goes along with a smaller collision volume, this in turn implies that the momentum per particle increases as a function of density, which is a generic consequence of thermalization. Our analysis provides the first direct evidence of this phenomenon at the femtoscale.
title Thermalization at the femtoscale seen in high-energy Pb+Pb collisions
topic Nuclear Theory
High Energy Physics - Experiment
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Nuclear Experiment
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.15323