Evidence of the triaxial structure of ${}^{129}$Xe at the Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

The interpretation of the emergent collective behaviour of atomic nuclei in terms of deformed intrinsic shapes [1] is at the heart of our understanding of the rich phenomenology of their structure, ranging from nuclear energy to astrophysical applications across a vast spectrum of energy scales. A new window onto the deformation of nuclei has been recently opened with the realization that nuclear collision experiments performed at high-energy colliders, such as the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), enable experimenters to identify the relative orientation of the colliding ions in a way that magnifies the manifestations of their intrinsic deformation [2]. Here we apply this technique to LHC data on collisions of ${}^{129}$Xe nuclei [3-5] to exhibit the first evidence of non-axiality in the ground state of ions collided at high energy. We predict that the low-energy structure of ${}^{129}$Xe is triaxial (a spheroid with three unequal axes), and show that such deformation can be determined from high-energy data. This result demonstrates the unique capabilities of precision collider machines such as the LHC as new means to perform imaging of the collective structure of atomic nuclei.

8 pages; 4 figures

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• Structure of ${}^{128,129,130}$Xe through multi-reference energy density functional calculations
• Exploring the Nuclear Shape Phase Transition in Ultra-Relativistic ${}^{129}$Xe+${}^{129}$Xe Collisions at the LHC
• Predictions for the sPHENIX physics program
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• Measuring deformed neutron skin with free spectator nucleons in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
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• Impact of nuclear structure on the CME background in ${}_{44}^{96}$Ru + ${}_{44}^{96}$Ru and ${}_{40}^{96}$Zr + ${}_{40}^{96}$Zr collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 7.7 $\sim$ 200 GeV from a multiphase transport model
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• Methods for systematic study of nuclear structure in high-energy collisions
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• Extraction of ground-state nuclear deformations from ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions: Nuclear structure physics context
• Generator coordinate method for nuclear octupole excitations: status and perspectives
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• An overview of new measurements of flow, chirality, and vorticity from STAR experiment
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• Scaling approach to rigid and soft nuclear deformation through flow fluctuations in high-energy nuclear collisions
• Disentangling effects of nucleon size and nucleus structure in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
• Benchmarking nuclear matrix elements of $0\nu \beta \beta$ decay with high-energy nuclear collisions
• Imprints of octupole collectivity in uranium-238 on relativistic heavy-ion flow observables
• Impact of the pre-equilibrium phase for the determination of nuclear geometry in high-energy isobar collisions
• Lifetimes and Transition Probabilities in $N=76^{130}Xe$
• Imaging two-body correlations in atomic nuclei via low- and high-energy processes
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• A comparison study of collisions at relativistic energies involving light nuclei