Production of ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ and $p-{}^3\mathrm{He}$ correlation function in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

The thermal and coalescence models both describe well yields of light nuclei produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at LHC. We propose to measure the yield of ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ and compare it to that of ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ to falsify one of the models. Since the masses of ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ and ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ are almost equal, the yield of ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ is about 5 times bigger than that of ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ in the thermal model because of different numbers of spin states of the two nuclides. Their internal structures are, however, very different: the alpha particle is well bound and compact while ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ is weakly bound and loose. Consequently, the ratio of yields of ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ to ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ is significantly smaller in the coalescence model and it strongly depends on the collision centrality. Since the nuclide ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ is unstable and it decays into ${}^3\mathrm{He}$ and $p$, the yield of ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ can be experimentally obtained through a measurement of the $p-{}^3\mathrm{He}$ correlation function. The function carries information not only about the yield of ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ but also about the source of ${}^3\mathrm{He}$ and allows one to determine through a source-size measurement whether of ${}^3\mathrm{He}$ is directly emitted from the fireball or it is formed afterwards. We compute the correlation function taking into account the $s-$wave scattering and Coulomb repulsion together with the resonance interaction responsible for the ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ nuclide. We discuss how to infer information about an origin of ${}^3\mathrm{He}$ from the correlation function, and finally a method to obtain the yield of ${}^4\mathrm{Li}$ is proposed.

arXiv comment16 pages, 10 figures, to appear in European Physical Journal A Topical Issue on "Light clusters in nuclei and nuclear matter: Nuclear structure and decay, heavy ion collisions, and astrophysics". arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2004.07029

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• Femtoscopic study of the $\Lambda \alpha$ interaction
• Exploring the $\varphi \text{-}\alpha$ interaction via femtoscopic study
• QFT treatment of a bound state in a thermal gas
• Elliptic flow of deuterons in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions
• Femtoscopic study of the $\Omega \alpha$ interaction in heavy-ion collisions
• Production of Light Nuclei in Heavy Ion Collisions via Hagedorn Resonances
• Production characteristics of light nuclei, hypertritons and $\Omega$-hypernuclei in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5.02$ TeV
• Theoretical study on $\Lambda \alpha$ and $\Xi \alpha$ correlation functions
• Theoretical study of the $\Xi \alpha$ correlation function