engleski

Creation of quark–gluon plasma droplets with three distinct geometries

Experimental studies of the collisions of heavy nuclei at relativistic energies have established the properties of the quark–gluon plasma (QGP), a state of hot, dense nuclear matter in which quarks and gluons are not bound into hadrons. In this state, matter behaves as a nearly inviscid fluid5 that efficiently translates initial spatial anisotropies into correlated momentum anisotropies among the particles produced, creating a common velocity field pattern known as collective flow. In recent years, comparable momentum anisotropies have been measured in small-system proton–proton (p+p) and proton– nucleus (p+A) collisions, despite expectations that the volume and lifetime of the medium produced would be too small to form a QGP. Here we report on the observation of elliptic and triangular flow patterns of charged particles produced in proton–gold (p+Au), deuteron–gold (d+Au) and helium–gold (3He+Au) collisions at a nucleon–nucleon centre-of-mass energy sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. The unique combination of three distinct initial geometries and two flow patterns provides unprecedented model discrimination. Hydrodynamical models, which include the formation of a short-lived QGP droplet, provide the best simultaneous description of these measurements.

p+p, p+A, 200 GeV, QGP, flow, RHIC, PHEHIX

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