%0 Journal Article
%T Creation of quark每gluon plasma droplets with three distinct geometries
%J -
%D 2018
%R https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0360-0
%X Experimental studies of the collisions of heavy nuclei at relativistic energies have established the properties of the quark每gluon plasma (QGP), a state of hot, dense nuclear matter in which quarks and gluons are not bound into hadrons1,2,3,4. In this state, matter behaves as a nearly inviscid fluid5 that efficiently translates initial spatial anisotropies into correlated momentum anisotropies among the particles produced, creating a common velocity field pattern known as collective flow. In recent years, comparable momentum anisotropies have been measured in small-system proton每proton (p+p) and proton每nucleus (p+A) collisions, despite expectations that the volume and lifetime of the medium produced would be too small to form a QGP. Here we report on the observation of elliptic and triangular flow patterns of charged particles produced in proton每gold (p+Au), deuteron每gold (d+Au) and helium每gold (3He+Au) collisions at a nucleon每nucleon centre-of-mass energy \(\sqrt {s_{{\mathrm{NN}}}}\)ˋ=ˋ200ˋGeV. The unique combination of three distinct initial geometries and two flow patterns provides unprecedented model discrimination. Hydrodynamical models, which include the formation of a short-lived QGP droplet, provide the best simultaneous description of these measurements
%U https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-018-0360-0