Investigating the Effects of Exotic α-Clustered Nuclear Density Profile on Medium Anisotropy in p–O and p–C Collisions at the LHC

Abstract

Exploring the possibilities of collectivity in small systems stands as one of the major goals for the upcoming p–O and O–O collisions at the LHC. Anisotropic flow coefficients, v<inf>n</inf> which quantify the azimuthal momentum anisotropy of the produced hadrons are known to be sensitive to the initial-state nuclear configurations of the colliding nuclei. Since 16Oand12Cnucleiaretheorizedtopossessanα-clustered nuclear geometry, studying p–O and p–C collisions at TeV energies serve the purposes of exploring both small system collectivity as well as the effects of clustered nuclear geometry on the final-state flow coefficients. This work, for the first time, simulates p–O and p–C collisions using a multi-phase transport model, at s<inf>NN</inf>=9.9TeVforα-clustered and Sum-of-Gaussians nuclear density profiles for 16Oand12C nuclei. We observe a very significant dependence of charged particle yield, eccentricities, and flow coefficients on nuclear density profile, collision species, and centrality. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.