Longitudinal flow decorrelations in light ion collisions

Abstract This study presents a detailed analysis of longitudinal flow decorrelations in light ion collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies for the first time. We compare different theoretical models of the oxygen structure and find that certain observables such as the flow vector correlator can distinguish between them, particularly highlighting differences between the variational Monte Carlo (VMC) structure and other models, such as Nuclear Lattice Effective Field Theory (NLEFT) and the Projected Generator Coordinate Method (PGCM), which behave similarly. We further examine flow decorrelations across different systems, including d+Au and O+O collisions at 200 GeV, as well as Ne+Ne and O+O collisions at 6.37 TeV, indicating a hierarchy in decorrelations that underscores the complexity of these interactions. Our findings emphasize that the role of asymmetry in d+Au collisions and its impact on flow correlations is mitigated using a modified flow correlation defined as a ratio of two flow vector covariances derived from different pairs of pseudorapidity bins. Additionally, our analysis of flow angle decorrelations shows diverse distributions across various systems, finding distinct patterns in d+Au collisions compared to other collision systems.