Volume effect on the extraction of sound velocity in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions

Understand

The determination of the speed of sound in quark-gluon plasma is a crucial aspect of understanding the properties of strongly interacting matter created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.

• In this study, we investigate the impact of initial-state fluctuations on the extraction of the speed of sound in a quark-gluon plasma in the ultra-central collisions.
• By employing the TRENTo model for simulating initial conditions, we demonstrate that these fluctuations lead to sizable volume effect, which in turn corrects the measured values of the sound velocity.
• With respect to realistic conditions of high-energy heavy-ion experiments, we provide quantitative estimate of these corrections.