Neutron Skin from Conserved Charge Measurements at Collider Experiments

2025/09/25 by Grégoire Pihan, Pihan, Grégoire, Akihiko Monnai +5 · 1 citation
#nucl-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2509.21644

Abstract

We propose a novel method for measuring the neutron skin of heavy nuclei using collider experiments. Specifically, we demonstrate that the neutron skin thickness of the lead nucleus can be extracted in p+²⁰⁸Pb collisions by analyzing a double ratio: The ratio of net electric charge to net baryon number measured near the lead-going rapidity, taken for high-multiplicity events and divided by the same ratio for low-multiplicity events. We compute the expected sensitivity of the double ratio to the neutron skin within a comprehensive (3+1)D relativistic hydrodynamic framework that incorporates multiple conserved charge currents and a charge-dependent lattice-QCD-based equation of state. We provide predictions for both p+²⁰⁸Pb collisions at √s_NN=72~GeV and √s_NN=5.02~TeV, corresponding to the center of mass energies realized in the SMOG2 fixed-target setup at LHCb and the LHC collider mode, respectively.

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