Possible formation of a perfect fluid in pp, p–Pb, Xe–Xe and Pb–Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider energies: a color string percolation approach

Abstract

Isothermal compressibility ($\kappa_{\rm T}$) is an important thermodynamic observable which gives information about the deviation of a system from perfect fluid behavior. In this work, for the first time we have estimated the isothermal compressibility of QCD matter formed in high energy hadronic and nuclear collisions using color string percolation model (CSPM), where we investigate the change in $\kappa_{\rm T}$ as a function of final state charged particle multiplicity and initial percolation temperature across various collision species. The estimated initial percolation temperature for different collision systems at different collision energies helps us to have a better understanding of the system at the initial phase of evolution. The comparison of the CSPM results for isothermal compressibility with that for the well known fluids, indicates that the matter formed in heavy-ion collisions might be the {\it closest perfect fluid} found in nature. This estimation complements the well-known observation of minimum shear viscosity to entropy density ratio for a possible QGP medium created in heavy-ion collision experiments. A threshold of pseudorapidity density of charged particles, $\langle dN_{\rm ch}/d\eta \rangle \geq 20 $ in the final state event multiplicity is observed, after which one may look for a possible QGP formation at the LHC energies.