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Confronting the production mechanisms of nuclei with deuteron and proton-triggered balance functions

Tripathy, Sushanta LU orcid and Christiansen, Peter LU (2026) In European Physical Journal C 86(5).
Abstract

In ultra high-energy collisions, nuclei with very low binding energies are not expected to survive the dense and hot final state environment. The traditional view has therefore been that nuclei form via coalescence after the hot environment has dissipated. However, statistical thermal models, where hadrons are produced from a fireball at thermal equilibrium, can describe the relative abundances of light nuclei in pp and heavy-ion collisions at the LHC equally well. In this paper we investigate if balance functions triggered by protons and deuterons can be used to distinguish between the two production mechanisms. The coalescence model is investigated using PYTHIA, while the statistical thermal model is examined using the Thermal FIST... (More)

In ultra high-energy collisions, nuclei with very low binding energies are not expected to survive the dense and hot final state environment. The traditional view has therefore been that nuclei form via coalescence after the hot environment has dissipated. However, statistical thermal models, where hadrons are produced from a fireball at thermal equilibrium, can describe the relative abundances of light nuclei in pp and heavy-ion collisions at the LHC equally well. In this paper we investigate if balance functions triggered by protons and deuterons can be used to distinguish between the two production mechanisms. The coalescence model is investigated using PYTHIA, while the statistical thermal model is examined using the Thermal FIST package. We find that for both models the same simple relation between proton and deuteron triggered balance functions is applicable. However, there is a striking difference between the two models when the transverse momentum of trigger particles is varied. This dependence offers a promising observable to discriminate between the two models that goes beyond nuclei production. Furthermore, we find that deuteron-meson balance functions vanish identically for both models due to baryon number conservation and isospin symmetry.

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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
European Physical Journal C
volume
86
issue
5
article number
443
pages
10 pages
publisher
Springer Nature
external identifiers
  • scopus:105038073495
ISSN
1434-6044
DOI
10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-15709-w
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2026.
id
2755cb7f-a718-4ea6-b124-c9b2b452de28
date added to LUP
2026-06-26 11:06:30
date last changed
2026-06-26 15:12:47
@article{2755cb7f-a718-4ea6-b124-c9b2b452de28,
  abstract     = {{<p>In ultra high-energy collisions, nuclei with very low binding energies are not expected to survive the dense and hot final state environment. The traditional view has therefore been that nuclei form via coalescence after the hot environment has dissipated. However, statistical thermal models, where hadrons are produced from a fireball at thermal equilibrium, can describe the relative abundances of light nuclei in pp and heavy-ion collisions at the LHC equally well. In this paper we investigate if balance functions triggered by protons and deuterons can be used to distinguish between the two production mechanisms. The coalescence model is investigated using PYTHIA, while the statistical thermal model is examined using the Thermal FIST package. We find that for both models the same simple relation between proton and deuteron triggered balance functions is applicable. However, there is a striking difference between the two models when the transverse momentum of trigger particles is varied. This dependence offers a promising observable to discriminate between the two models that goes beyond nuclei production. Furthermore, we find that deuteron-meson balance functions vanish identically for both models due to baryon number conservation and isospin symmetry.</p>}},
  author       = {{Tripathy, Sushanta and Christiansen, Peter}},
  issn         = {{1434-6044}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{5}},
  publisher    = {{Springer Nature}},
  series       = {{European Physical Journal C}},
  title        = {{Confronting the production mechanisms of nuclei with deuteron and proton-triggered balance functions}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-15709-w}},
  doi          = {{10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-15709-w}},
  volume       = {{86}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}