Separating the impact of nuclear skin and nuclear deformation in high-energy isobar collisions

Abstract

Bulk nuclear structure properties, such as radii and deformations, leave distinct signatures in the final state of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Isobaric collisions offer an easy route to establish explicit connections between the colliding nuclei's structure and the observable outcomes. Here, we investigate the effects of nuclear skin thickness and nuclear deformations on the elliptic flow ($v_2$) and its fluctuations in high-energy ${}^{96}$Ru+${}^{96}$Ru and ${}^{96}$Zr+${}^{96}$Zr collisions. Our findings reveal that the difference in skin thickness between these isobars only influences the inherent ellipticity of the collision systems, $v_2^{\mathrm{rp}}$. In contrast, differences in nuclear deformations solely impact the fluctuations of $v_2$ around $v_2^{\mathrm{rp}}$. Hence, we have identified a data-driven method to disentangle the effects of nuclear skin and nuclear deformations, marking a significant step toward assessing the consistency of nuclear phenomena across energy scales.

7 pages, 3 figures plus an appendix

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• Exploring Rapidity-Even Dipolar Flow in Isobaric Collisions at RHIC
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• Influence of Cluster Configurations and Nucleon--Nucleon Scattering Cross-Section on Stopping Power in Heavy-Ion Collisions
• A novel filtering method for generating desired density profiles of colliding nuclei
• Toward a Unified Understanding of the Dense Matter Equation of State
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