arXiv subjects

Nicolas Borghini

Publications and source records attributed to Nicolas Borghini.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Event-by-event fluctuations of elliptic flow in ultrarelativistic O+O collisions

We study O+O collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 5.36$ TeV within a fully three-dimensional $\text{McDipper}$+$\text{MUSIC}$ model, which allows us to describe the experimentally measured dependence of charged hadron multiplicity on centrality and pseudorapidity. We show that the initial elliptical eccentricity is mainly driven by the fluctuations of the energy deposition and thereby varies considerably event-by-event within a fixed centrality class. This also holds for elliptic flow $v_2$, whose origin in O+O thus differs from that in collisions of heavy nuclei. Using a decomposition of initial states in an average event and uncorrelated modes, we find that despite the large size of fluctuations we can reproduce the joint probability distribution of eccentricity and elliptic flow with a reasonable accuracy with only a small set of fluctuation modes.

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arXiv2025

Knudsen number and universal behavior of collective flows in conformal and non-conformal systems

We investigate the role of the Knudsen number (Kn) as a scaling parameter governing the emergence of collective behavior in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Using the Relativistic Boltzmann Transport approach, we explore different initial conditions for both conformal (massless) and non-conformal (massive) systems with a constant specific shear viscosity $\eta/s$. Observables such as the time evolution of anisotropic flow coefficients collapse onto universal curves for fixed classes of Knudsen number, when using a scaled time variable accounting for the system size and the speed of sound $c_s$. More differential quantities, such as $v_n(p_T/\langle E_T\rangle)$, show a larger sensitivity to $c_s$. We also study events with fluctuating initial profiles from the \trento\ model, simulating collision systems from O-O to Pb-Pb at RHIC and LHC energies. Universal scaling at a given Kn value also holds in these event-by-event simulations, suggesting that the Knudsen number provides a unified criterion for classifying collectivity across different systems, including small systems where thermalisation may not be fully realised.

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arXiv2025

Mode-by-mode evolution of Pb-Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV in a hybrid model

We determine the average state and the uncorrelated modes that characterize the event-by-event fluctuations of the initial state in two typical centrality classes of Pb-Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV. We find that modes in a narrow central bin are similar to those in events at fixed vanishing impact parameter, while those in a mid-peripheral centrality class are affected by the impact-parameter variation. We study how each fluctuation mode affects observables both in the initial state and in the final state of the collisions, at the end of a state-of-the-art boost-invariant hybrid evolution with KoMPoST + MUSIC + iSS + SMASH, and show that implementing a hadronic transport cascade in such a mode-by-mode analysis with reasonable statistical noise is costly but feasible.

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arXiv2025

Constraining hot and cold nuclear matter properties from heavy-ion collisions and deep-inelastic scattering

We perform a global analysis of deep-inelastic $e+p$ scattering data from HERA and transverse energy distributions in $p+p$ and $p+\mathrm{Pb}$ collisions, alongside charged hadron multiplicities in $\mathrm{Pb}+\mathrm{Pb}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}} = 5.02\;\mathrm{TeV}$ from ALICE. Using a saturation-based initial state model grounded in high-energy QCD, we determine the early-time non-equilibrium shear viscosity to entropy density ratio $\eta/s$ of the quark-gluon plasma. Our results provide new insights into the early-time transport properties of nuclear matter under extreme conditions.

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arXiv2025

Stochastic baryon charge transport in relativistic hydrodynamics

We utilize 3+1D stochastic hydrodynamics to study correlations and fluctuations of baryon charge in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. The baryon charge fluctuations are important observables to probe the QCD phase diagram, yet a dynamical description with stochastic hydrodynamics remains challenging due to numerical instabilities and high computational demands. In this work, we employ a linearized approach, allowing us to separately simulate the background energy-momentum evolution of a charge-neutral fluid and the stochastic baryon transport processes, thereby largely reducing computational cost while maintaining sufficient accuracy. We implement this linearized stochastic charge evolution in the viscous hydrodynamic code MUSIC, and find that it nicely describes the two-point correlation of 1+1D analytical solutions for various equations of state and transport coefficients. In particular, the hydrodynamic calculations demonstrate how different rapidity separations probe charge fluctuations originating at different times of the evolution. We also investigate the net baryon correlations after the Cooper--Frye freeze out, which show good consistency with the analytical calculations and indicate that these fluctuation-induced correlations are sensitive to the baryon diffusion coefficient.

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arXiv2025

Statistical analysis of the fluctuations of an initial-state model with independently distributed hot spots

We determine the uncorrelated modes that characterize the fluctuations in a semi-realistic model for the initial state of high-energy nuclear collisions, consisting of hot spots whose positions are distributed independently. Varying the number of hot spots, their size, and the weights with which they contribute to the initial state, we find that the parameter that has the largest influence on the relative importance of the fluctuation modes is the source size, with more extended hot spots leading to a more marked predominance of the principal modes.

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arXiv2024

Comparing matching prescriptions between pre-equilibrium and hydrodynamic models in high-energy nuclear collisions

State-of-the-art simulations of high-energy nuclear collisions rely on hybrid setups, involving in particular a pre-equilibrium stage to let the system evolve from a far-from-equilibrium initial condition towards a near-equilibrated state after which fluid dynamics can be applied meaningfully. A known issue is the mismatch between the equation of state in the fluid-dynamical evolution and the effective one in the previous stage, which leads to discontinuities at the interface between the two models. Here we introduce a new matching prescription at this interface, based on the entropy, and we compare it with the standard one relying on local energy conservation. We study the behavior of various quantities at the switching time between the models and investigate a number of final-state hadronic observables. For the latter, we show that they are not modified significantly by the choice of matching prescription, provided an appropriate normalization is chosen for the initial state. In turn, our approach reduces sizeably the ratio of bulk over thermodynamic pressure at the beginning of the fluid-dynamical stage.

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arXiv2023

Statistical analysis of initial state and final state response in heavy-ion collisions

We develop a general decomposition of an ensemble of initial density profiles in terms of an average state and a basis of modes that represent the event-by-event fluctuations of the initial state. The basis is determined such that the probability distributions of the amplitudes of different modes are uncorrelated. Based on this decomposition, we quantify the different types and probabilities of event-by-event fluctuations in Glauber and Saturation models and investigate how the various modes affect different characteristics of the initial state. We perform simulations of the dynamical evolution with KoMPoST and MUSIC to investigate the impact of the modes on final-state observables and their correlations.

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arXiv2023

On differences between even and odd anisotropic-flow harmonics in non-equilibrated systems

To assess how anisotropic transverse flow is created in a system out of equilibrium, we compare several kinetic-theoretical models in the few-rescatterings regime. We compare the flow harmonics $v_n$ from three types of transport simulations, with either $2\to 2$ or $2\to 0$ collision kernels and in the former case allowing the particles to rescatter several times or not, and from analytical calculations neglecting the gain term of the Boltzmann equation. We find that the even flow harmonics are similar in all approaches, while the odd ones differ significantly. This suggests that while even $v_n$ harmonics may to a large extent be due to the anisotropic escape probability of particles, this is not the predominant mechanism underlying the odd $v_n$ coefficients.

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arXiv2022

Early time behavior of spatial and momentum anisotropies in kinetic theory across different Knudsen numbers

We investigate the early time development of the anisotropic transverse flow and spatial eccentricities of a fireball with various particle-based transport approaches using a fixed initial condition. In numerical simulations ranging from the quasi-collisionless case to the hydrodynamic regime, we find that the onset of $v_n$ and of related measures of anisotropic flow can be described with a simple power-law ansatz, with an exponent that depends on the amount of rescatterings in the system. In the few-rescatterings regime we perform semi-analytical calculations, based on a systematic expansion in powers of time and the cross section, which can reproduce the numerical findings.

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arXiv2022

Early time behavior of spatial and momentum anisotropies in a kinetic approach to nuclear collisions

We derive a general formula for the early time dependence of a phase space distribution evolving according to the kinetic Boltzmann equation. Assuming that the early evolution of the system created in high-energy nuclear collisions can be described by kinetic theory, we calculate the scaling behaviors for the onset of various characteristics of the transverse dynamics. In particular, we show that the scaling behavior of the anisotropic flow coefficients $v_n$ at early times does not depend on the details of the collision kernel or the system composition, while at the same time it differs from the prediction of fluid dynamics.

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arXiv2021

Fireball tomography from bottomonia elliptic flow in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We calculate the elliptic flow of bottomonia produced in Pb$\,+\,$Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=5.02$ TeV. We consider temperature-dependent decay widths for the anisotropic escape of various bottomonium states and observe that the transverse momentum dependence of bottomonia elliptic flow provides a tomographic information about the QGP fireball at different stages of its evolution. For the space-time evolution of the fireball, we employ simulation results from the 3+1D quasiparticle anisotropic hydrodynamic model. We find that our results for transverse momentum dependence of bottomonia elliptic flow are in reasonable agreement with experimental results from the ALICE and CMS collaborations.

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arXiv2021

Fluctuations of anisotropic flow from the finite number of rescatterings in a two-dimensional massless transport model

We investigate the fluctuations of anisotropic transverse flow due to the finite number of scatterings in a two-dimensional system of massless particles. Using a set of initial geometries from a Monte Carlo Glauber model, we study how flow coefficients fluctuate about their mean value at the corresponding eccentricity, for several values of the scattering cross section. We also show how the distributions of the second and third event planes of anisotropic flow about the corresponding participant plane in the initial geometry evolve as a function of the mean number of scatterings in the system.

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arXiv2019

Anisotropic escape mechanism and elliptic flow of bottomonia

We study the role of anisotropic escape in generating the elliptic flow of bottomonia produced in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We implement temperature-dependent decay widths for the various bottomonium states, to calculate their survival probability when traversing through the anisotropic hot medium formed in non-central collisions. We employ the recently developed 3+1d quasiparticle anisotropic hydrodynamic simulation to model the space-time evolution of the quark-gluon plasma. We provide a quantitative prediction for transverse momentum dependence of bottomonium elliptic flow and nuclear modification factor for Pb$\,+\,$Pb collisions in $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76$ TeV at the Large Hadron Collider.

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arXiv2018

Anisotropic flow in the few collisions regime: application to bottomonia

Considering the kinetic Boltzmann equation in the limit of very few collisions, we study the evolution of the phase space distribution of bottomonia interacting with an expanding gas of massless partons. We investigate the scaling of the anisotropic flow coefficients on the initial eccentricities and the inverse Knudsen number, and compute their transverse momentum dependence.

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arXiv2018

Scaling behavior of anisotropic flow harmonics in the far from equilibrium regime

We consider the development of anisotropic flow in an expanding system of particles undergoing very few rescatterings, using a kinetic-theoretical description with a nonlinear collision term. We derive the scaling behaviors of the harmonic coefficients $v_n$ with the initial-state eccentricities and the mean number of rescatterings, and argue that hexagonal flow $v_6$ should follow a nontrivial behavior, different from that of the lower harmonics. Our findings should be observable in experimental data for small systems.

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arXiv2015

Kinetic freeze out from an anisotropic fluid in high-energy heavy-ion collisions: particle spectra, Hanbury Brown-Twiss radii, and anisotropic flow

Dissipative relativistic fluid-dynamical descriptions of the extended fireball formed in high-energy heavy-ion collisions are quite successful, yet require a prescription for converting the fluid into particles. We present arguments in favour of using a locally anisotropic momentum distribution for the particles emitted from the fluid, so as to smooth out discontinuities introduced by the usual conversion prescriptions. Building on this ansatz, we investigate the effect of the asymmetry on several observables of heavy ion physics.

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arXiv2014

Dissipative corrections to particle spectra and anisotropic flow from a saddle-point approximation to kinetic freeze out

A significant fraction of the changes in momentum distributions induced by dissipative phenomena in the description of the fluid fireball created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions actually take place when the fluid turns into individual particles. We study these corrections in the limit of a low freeze-out temperature of the flowing medium, and we show that they mostly affect particles with a higher velocity than the fluid. For these, we derive relations between different flow harmonics, from which the functional form of the dissipative corrections could ultimately be reconstructed from experimental data.

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