Recently, Xu Haojie, an Associate Researcher from the Physics discipline of the School of Science of Huzhou University, in collaboration with partners from Peking University and the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen, published an academic paper titled “Exploring the Nuclear Shape Phase Transition in Ultra-Relativistic 129Xe+129Xe Collisions at the LHC” in the top physics journal Physical Review Letters” (PRL). The paper’s first author is Zhao Shujun, a Ph.D. candidate at Peking University co-supervised by Huzhou University, and Dr. Xu serves as a co-corresponding author. The research was supported by funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

　　Nuclei usually have deformations that deviate from the spherical structure, which reflects the nature of the strong interaction within the nucleus. Early studies have shown that the transition from spherical to deformed nuclei in the xenon (Xe) nuclear isotope chain has the characteristics of a second-order shape phase transition, which is usually manifested in the deformation distribution of Xe nuclei. In this work, through a new means of relativistic heavy-ion collisions, the influence of the triaxial deformation fluctuations of Xe nuclei on the final state observables was studied in relativistic 129Xe+129Xe collisions. It was found that although the ordinary three-particle correlation quantity cannot distinguish the fluctuation distribution information of the triaxial deformation, the higher-order six-particle correlation quantity shows the ability to distinguish whether the Xe nucleus has the shape phase transition characteristics of soft triaxial deformation. This study shows the great potential of high-energy nuclear-nuclear collisions in the study of nuclear structure, and relevant physical quantities are expected to be accurately measured at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research in the future.

　　PRL is a high-level academic journal sponsored by the American Physical Society. As an authoritative journal in the field of physics, it mainly publishes research results with extremely high originality. In recent years, the nuclear physics team at the School of Science of Huzhou University has actively collaborated with domestic and international institutions, achieving significant breakthroughs published in PRL. These achievements have notably enhanced the academic reputation of Huzhou University both nationally and internationally.

　　Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.192301