2025/07/22 by S. Huang, Huang, Shengli, J. Jia +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Nuclear physics research studies #Astro and Planetary Science #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.16162
Previous flow measurements in small collision systems were mostly based on highly asymmetric collisions (p+Pb, p+Au, d+Au, 3He+Au), where both nuclear structure and subnucleonic fluctuations are important. Comparing these asymmetric systems with the newly available symmetric 16O+16O collisions at RHIC and LHC provides a unique opportunity to disentangle these two contributions. Using Glauber models incorporating both nucleon and quark-level substructure, we analyze multiplicity distributions and initial-state estimators: eccentricities εn for anisotropic flow vn and inverse transverse size d⊥ for radial flow. We find that subnucleonic fluctuations impact O+O collisions differently from asymmetric systems, creating specific patterns in flow observables that enable disentangling the competing contributions. Such experimental comparisons will reduce uncertainties in the initial conditions and improve our understanding of the properties of the QGP-like medium produced in small systems.