Observation of alignment in the azimuth-pseudorapidity matrix in central collisions of 32S nuclei with heavy nuclei of emulsion at sNN = 20 GeV

In interactions of [Formula: see text]S sulfur nuclei with heavy photoemulsion nuclei ([Formula: see text]Ag, [Formula: see text]Br) at the energy [Formula: see text], it was found that the growth of azimuthal elliptical correlations with the multiplicity [Formula: see text] of relativistic [Formula: see text]particles at large [Formula: see text] is associated with the appearance of non-intersecting filamentary alignments on the surface of the two-dimensional correlation matrix between the pseudorapidity differences [Formula: see text] and the azimuthal angle differences [Formula: see text] for all pairs of secondary relativistic [Formula: see text]particles. At relatively low multiplicities [Formula: see text], filamentary alignments do not manifest themselves clearly, and statistically supported elliptical correlations are not observed. If the multiplicity [Formula: see text] is proportional to the energy density in the source of s-particles, then such a sharp change in symmetry (from the disordered symmetry type at low [Formula: see text] to the structured filamentary symmetry type at high [Formula: see text] can be associated with a second-order phase transition in a statistical system, when the energy density of the source of secondary s-particles reaches a certain threshold value (at [Formula: see text] and this source of s-particles begins to exhibit quantum properties.