Imaging shapes of atomic nuclei in high-energy nuclear collisions

Atomic nuclei are self-organized, many-body quantum systems bound by strong nuclear forces within femtometre-scale space. These complex systems manifest a variety of shapes<sup>1-3</sup>, traditionally explored using non-invasive spectroscopic techniques at low energies<sup>4,5</sup>. However, at these energies, their instantaneous shapes are obscured by long-timescale quantum fluctuations, making direct observation challenging. Here we introduce the collective-flow-assisted nuclear shape-imaging method, which images the nuclear global shape by colliding them at ultrarelativistic speeds and analysing the collective response of outgoing debris. This technique captures a collision-specific snapshot of the spatial matter distribution within the nuclei, which, through the hydrodynamic expansion, imprints patterns on the particle momentum distribution observed in detectors<sup>6,7</sup>. We benchmark this method in collisions of ground-state uranium-238 nuclei, known for their elongated, axial-symmetric shape. Our findings show a large deformation with a slight deviation from axial symmetry in the nuclear ground state, aligning broadly with previous low-energy experiments. This approach offers a new method for imaging nuclear shapes, enhances our understanding of the initial conditions in high-energy collisions and addresses the important issue of nuclear structure evolution across energy scales.

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Journal
Nature
Published
2024-11-06
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08097-2
Citations
58
Primary Topic
High-Energy Particle Collisions Research
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article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
38.26

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article

Imaging shapes of atomic nuclei in high-energy nuclear collisions

X. Wang, Y. Feng, X. Dong, M. D. Harasty et al.
58 citations
Nature
High-Energy Particle Collisions Research
38.26
article

Imaging shapes of atomic nuclei in high-energy nuclear collisions

X. Wang, Y. Feng, X. Dong, M. D. Harasty, A. S. Nain, I. M. Deppner, J. C. Webb, Brian C. Schaefer, Z. Liu, C. Li, G. Dale-Gau, Rohini Sharma, A. Bhasin, G. Eppley, H. Sako, Y. Fisyak, Zheng Tang, K. Wang, E. Shahaliev, G. Van Buren, J. Tyler, Gangui Yan, W. He, S. Kabana, N. R. Sahoo, X. F. Luo, G. Wilks, N. Sharma, M. Strikhanov, H. J. Crawford, L. Kochenda, M. Żurek, W. Zhang, G. Agakishiev, J. H. Thomas, V. B. Luong, T. Ljubicic, K. Kauder, M. A. Rosales Aguilar, L. Yi, V. Verkest, Yang Zhou, I. Chakaberia, Jaideep Singh, Mengfei Zhao, I. Upsal, T. Nonaka, A. Pandav, S. Bhatta, A. Vasiliev, James W. Harris, I. Aggarwal, Y. H. Leung, M. Calderón de la Barca Sánchez, X. Ju, F. Videbæk, E. Samigullin, J. Wang, Z. W. Sweger, D. Kapukchyan, T. Protzman, T. G. Dedovich, M. Zyzak, H. R. Qi, S. R. Bhosale, S. L. Huang, M. Sharma, Z. Chen, E. Duckworth, K. Gopal, B. Xi, G. D. Westfall, E. Alpatov, P. Bhagat, Y. Söhngen, M. Posik, G. Liu, C. W. Robertson, J. L. Drachenberg, D. Shen, C. Racz, B. R. Pokhrel, A. A. Korobitsin, H. Liu, Z. Wang, A. Aparin, D. Cebra, D. Zhang, G. Nigmatkulov, H-S. Li, D. Neff, A. V. Povarov, J. M. Landgraf, D. Chen, R. Lednický, F. A. Flor, P. Sinha, R. Manikandhan, G. S. Averichev, J. H. Chen, G. McNamara, D. Y. Shen, J. S. Wang, S. Sato, Y. Sun, R. Ma, X. Gou, A. Yu. Kraeva, I. I. Alekseev, Yang Yu, C. Liu, G. Wang, C. Y. Tsang, O. Eyser, J. Putschke, N. Xu, J. H. Lee, J. Zhao, N. G. Minaev, O. V. Rogachevsky, Arpon Paul, C. J. Feng, Jennifer Atchison, A. C. Tamis, J. Jia, K. N. Barish, M. M. Aggarwal, C. Fu, A. Taranenko, S. W. Wissink, R. Seto, Y. Han, B. Mohanty, T. Pani, W. Xu, E. Finch, S. A. Voloshin, Jin Chang, P. Tribedy, J. Ceska, Yang Su, A. Aitbaev, W. W. Jacobs, C. Zhang, D. Kalinkin, B. K. Chan, S. Fazio, Da Li, Subhash Singha, B. E. Aboona, Ying-Shuang Liang, S. Zhang, Y. G., Yuan Su, T. Shao, Z. J. Zhang, E. Loyd, Ajay Rana, M. Isshiki, Changqing Sun, L. Liu, J. C. Dunlop, R. Fatemi, O. Lomicky, A. Gibson, X. H. He, O. Evdokimov, A. K. Sahoo, Ka Shen, F. Si, Z. G. Xiao, T. Todoroki, N. Ghimire, H. Z. Huang, A. Mudrokh, Z. Chang, M. I. Abdulhamid, H. Harrison-Smith, M. C. Labonte, O. Mezhanska, C. Broodo, E. Nedorezov, X. Li, Y. Lin, Jun Chen, Jianyu Zhang, Qiang Hu, Zhiying Li, L. Kumar, Y. Yang, T. Tarnowsky, N. Schmitz, Z. Tu, Y. Panebratsev, G. Odyniec, Hongbo Qiu, I. Mooney, N. Shah, K. Okubo, Arkaprava Das, S. S. Shi, Y. Ji, C. Hu, Y. Song, X. Z. Cai, H. S. Ko, Tingting Lu, R. S. Longacre, Z. Yan, D. J. Stewart, P. Parfenov, P. C. Weidenkaff, M. V. Tokarev, G. Xie, S. Salur, A. Chatterjee, J. Cheng, D. G. Underwood, D. Tlusty, S. Vokal, H. Caines, R. L. Ray, O. D. Tsai, O. Matonoha, T. J. Humanic, A. V. Brandin, W. Xie, H. Xu, S. R. Sharma, J. Engelage, D. Roy, A. Hamed, N. Magdy, W. B. Schmidke, N. K. Pruthi, F. J. M. Geurts, Y. Wang, S. K. Radhakrishnan, Y. Cheng, A. I. Sheikh, S. Zhou, A. Jalotra, E. G. Judd, C. Perkins, Q. Y. Shou, A. Gupta, S. K. Pal, D. Keane, A. Ogawa, S. Margetis, T. Liu, J. R. Adams, W. Christie, I. G. Bordyuzhin, A. G. Knospe, X. Zhu, P. Kravtsov, Sung Bin Oh, Y. Liu, W. Li, J. D. Nam, X. Zhang, Md. Nasim, A. Kechechyan, A. H. Tang, X. Sun, R. Lacey, M. I. Nagy, T. H. Lin, D. Grosnick, Y. Shi, T. D. S. Stanislaus, V. A. Okorokov, J. D. Brandenburg, B. S. Page, L. Ma, Z. Ahammed, F. Zhao, A. Kiselev, T. Niida, Z. Ye, L. Ruan, Qian Yang, S. Esumi, J. Ball, B. Surrow, H. Z. Huang, M. Nie, A. A. Derevschikov, P. Dixit, Y. Zhang, M. Csanád, T. Huang, D. A. Morozov, B. Srivastava, J. M. Nelson, V. Bairathi, K. Kang, A. Khanal, M. J. Skoby, S. Aslam, Wenyou Zha, K. Mi, J. Adam, J. Seger, P. Seyboth, M. M. Mondal, H. Wieman, A. K. Panday, L. V. Nogach, S. Trentalange, C. Jena, P. V. Shanmuganathan, T. Ullrich, Y. Huang, T. Gao, Xixin Liang, D. N. Svirida, A. Dhamija, A. Lebedev, J. Luo, X. Wu, X. Chu, Hongyang Li, Y. Hu, C. Yang, Yang He, B. Mondal
article en
58 citations

Abstract

Atomic nuclei are self-organized, many-body quantum systems bound by strong nuclear forces within femtometre-scale space. These complex systems manifest a variety of shapes<sup>1-3</sup>, traditionally explored using non-invasive spectroscopic techniques at low energies<sup>4,5</sup>. However, at these energies, their instantaneous shapes are obscured by long-timescale quantum fluctuations, making direct observation challenging. Here we introduce the collective-flow-assisted nuclear shape-imaging method, which images the nuclear global shape by colliding them at ultrarelativistic speeds and analysing the collective response of outgoing debris. This technique captures a collision-specific snapshot of the spatial matter distribution within the nuclei, which, through the hydrodynamic expansion, imprints patterns on the particle momentum distribution observed in detectors<sup>6,7</sup>. We benchmark this method in collisions of ground-state uranium-238 nuclei, known for their elongated, axial-symmetric shape. Our findings show a large deformation with a slight deviation from axial symmetry in the nuclear ground state, aligning broadly with previous low-energy experiments. This approach offers a new method for imaging nuclear shapes, enhances our understanding of the initial conditions in high-energy collisions and addresses the important issue of nuclear structure evolution across energy scales.

NatureVol. 635(8037)
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US), University of California, Riverside (US), Eötvös Loránd University (HU), Creighton University (US), University of Science and Technology of China (CN), Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (IN), Argonne National Laboratory (US), Indian Institute of Technology Patna (IN), University of Kentucky (US), University of Jammu (IN), University of Tsukuba (JP), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US), Valparaiso University (US), Kent State University (US), Shandong University (CN), National Institute of Technology Durgapur (IN), Chongqing University (CN), University of California, Los Angeles (US), National Institute of Science Education and Research (IN), Wayne State University (US), University of Tarapacá (CL), Lehigh University (US), South China Normal University (CN), Ball State University (US), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Brookhaven National Laboratory (US), Purdue University West Lafayette (US), Heidelberg University (DE), Fudan University (CN), Kurchatov Institute (RU), Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (DE), Sejong University (KR), Guangxi Normal University (CN), Huzhou Normal University (CN), Institute for High Energy Physics (RU), Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (RU), Yale University (US), Southern Connecticut State University (US), University of Illinois Chicago (US), Central China Normal University (CN), Max Planck Institute for Physics (DE), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Berhampur (IN), Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (RU), Indiana University Bloomington (US), Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (CN), Institute of Modern Physics (CN), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Tirupati (IN), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Wuhan University of Science and Technology (CN), University of Houston (US), Czech Technical University in Prague (CZ), University of Calabria (IT), Panjab University (IN), The Ohio State University (US), Stony Brook University (US), Abilene Christian University (US), Rice University (US), American University in Cairo (EG), University of California, Davis (US), Temple University (US), The University of Texas at Austin (US), Michigan State University (US), National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (RU), Texas A&M University (US), National Cheng Kung University (TW), University of California, Berkeley (US), Tsinghua University (CN)
National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, National Research Foundation, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grantová Agentura České Republiky, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Research Foundation of Korea, Emberi Eroforrások Minisztériuma, Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo, Office of Science, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Nuclear Physics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
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