Rapidity-dependent charge dynamics in high-energy nuclear collisions from dynamical core-corona initialization
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: We develop a new model that provides a unified description of the equilibration and subsequent transport of conserved charges, including baryon number, electric charge, and strangeness, as well as the dynamical formation and evolution of the quark-gluon plasma medium in high-energy nuclear collisions. This is achieved by extending the state-of-the-art model of dynamical core-corona initialization to incorporate phenomenological source terms for conserved charges within a full (3+1)-dimensional hydrodynamic framework; the updated model is referred to as DCCI3. Consequently, the model simultaneously describes the core (equilibrium) and corona (nonequilibrium), including their mutual interactions. We present a detailed construction of the DCCI3 model and employ it in numerical simulations of Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76~\mathrm{TeV}$ to investigate the resulting dynamics of matter and conserved charges, with particular emphasis on the longitudinal structure. We find that each of the chemical potentials exhibits sizable fluctuations around midrapidity, which challenges the conventional assumption of vanishing values as an oversimplification. Moreover, the baryon chemical potential increases sharply with rapidity and becomes comparable to the temperature at forward rapidities. This suggests that the Rapidity Scan (RS) approach in high-energy nuclear collisions can serve as a complementary probe to the Beam Energy Scan (BES) in exploring the QCD phase diagram.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Institutions: Sophia University, Akita International University
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7220701439