Temperature of the hot α-source: A guidance to probe the Bose-Einstein condensation of α clusters in the heavy-ion collision

Abstract

Recent experimental efforts were made to explore the Bose-Einstein condensation in multi-α system using the heavy-ion collisions. This Letter provides an explanation why no signatures were observed and a guidance for future experiments. More precisely, a harmonic oscillator model is developed to study the multi-α source at or near zero temperature. The temperature and particle population of the multi-α sources observed in the current experiments are extracted. It is found that almost no α particles occupy the ground state in those multi-α sources. The critical temperatures for the multi-α-condensed states are predicted, which provides a guidance for the future experiments to probe the Bose-Einstein condensation of α clusters in the heavy-ion collisions.