Secondary Hadron--Nucleus Collisions of Short-Lived Hadrons in Ultra-Relativistic Fixed-Target Heavy-Ion Interactions
Abstract
Ultra-relativistic heavy nuclei traversing a solid target undergo successive nuclear encounters separated by atomic lattice spacings. At sufficiently high beam energies, Lorentz contraction reduces the proper time between collisions to 𝒪(104)~fm/c in the center-of-mass frame of the first interaction. We then consider the fragmentation region of this first collision, and show that short-lived hadrons produced in this region, with additional Lorentz boost, can reach the next nucleus before decaying. We show that this geometry enables secondary hadron--nucleus collisions involving species that cannot be realized as conventional secondary beams or in subsequent hadron--nucleus interactions in cosmic-ray cascades. For a $2.76$ TeV-per-nucleon Pb beam incident on a solid Pb lattice, we determine which forward-produced hadrons can survive to a second interaction, estimate their collision probabilities, and analyze potential observable consequences. In particular, we identify some representative hadrons whose proper lifetimes are of order 103 fm/c, e.g. specific mesons (η′) and heavy-flavor resonances (J/ψ, D*(2010)), as projectile species that become accessible through this collision space-time geometry. At substantially higher beam energies (for example, with 10 TeV per-nucleon Pb beam), the survival probabilities are significantly enhanced. This can make even very short lived hadrons with life times of few tens fm ( Ξ(1530), ω(782), ϕ(1020)) available for this secondary hadron-nucleus collision, providing an additional motivation for future ultra-relativistic fixed-target heavy-ion experiments.
Versions
Related
- Observation of enhanced baryon production using strange hadrons in oxygen-oxygen collisions
- Final-state effects on the transverse-momentum spectra of charged hadrons in p+Pb and Pb+Pb collisions at √(sNN) = 5.02~TeV using the modified Tsallis distribution
- Compositeness of near-threshold exotic hadrons in systems with Coulomb and short-range interactions
- Unexpectedly large violation of isospin symmetry in nucleus-nucleus collisions at CERN SPS energies
- Entanglement Entropy in Non Relativistic Collisions
BibTeX
@misc{digal2026secondary,
title = {{Secondary Hadron--Nucleus Collisions of Short-Lived Hadrons in Ultra-Relativistic Fixed-Target Heavy-Ion Interactions}},
author = {Sanatan Digal and P. S. Saumia and Ajit M. Srivastava},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.08658},
eprint = {2607.08658},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.08658},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Secondary Hadron--Nucleus Collisions of Short-Lived Hadrons in Ultra-Relativistic Fixed-Target Heavy-Ion Interactions
AU - Sanatan Digal
AU - P. S. Saumia
AU - Ajit M. Srivastava
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/23
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.08658
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.08658
AB - Ultra-relativistic heavy nuclei traversing a solid target undergo successive nuclear encounters separated by atomic lattice spacings. At sufficiently high beam energies, Lorentz contraction reduces the proper time between collisions to 𝒪(10^4)~fm/c in the center-of-mass frame of the first interaction. We then consider the fragmentation region of this first collision, and show that short-lived hadrons produced in this region, with additional Lorentz boost, can reach the next nucleus before decaying. We show that this geometry enables secondary hadron--nucleus collisions involving species that cannot be realized as conventional secondary beams or in subsequent hadron--nucleus interactions in cosmic-ray cascades. For a $2.76$ TeV-per-nucleon Pb beam incident on a solid Pb lattice, we determine which forward-produced hadrons can survive to a second interaction, estimate their collision probabilities, and analyze potential observable consequences. In particular, we identify some representative hadrons whose proper lifetimes are of order 10^3 fm/c, e.g. specific mesons (η^′) and heavy-flavor resonances (J/ψ, D^*(2010)), as projectile species that become accessible through this collision space-time geometry. At substantially higher beam energies (for example, with 10 TeV per-nucleon Pb beam), the survival probabilities are significantly enhanced. This can make even very short lived hadrons with life times of few tens fm ( Ξ(1530), ω(782), ϕ(1020)) available for this secondary hadron-nucleus collision, providing an additional motivation for future ultra-relativistic fixed-target heavy-ion experiments.
ER -