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Abstract This paper is a write-up of the ideas that were presented, developed and discussed at the third International Workshop on QCD Challenges from pp to A–A, which took place in August 2019 in Lund, Sweden (Workshop link: https://indico.lucas.lu.se/event/1214/ ). The goal of the workshop was to focus on some of the open questions in the field and try to come up with concrete suggestions for how to make progress on both the experimental and theoretical sides. The paper gives a brief introduction to each topic and then summarizes the primary results.

Abstract Three-body nuclear forces play an important role in the structure of nuclei and hypernuclei and are also incorporated in models to describe the dynamics of dense baryonic matter, such as in neutron stars. So far, only indirect measurements anchored to the binding energies of nuclei can be used to constrain the three-nucleon force, and if hyperons are considered, the scarce data on hypernuclei impose only weak constraints on the three-body forces. In this work, we present the first direct measurement of the p–p–p and p–p– $$\Lambda $$ Λ systems in terms of three-particle correlation functions carried out for pp collisions at $$\sqrt{s} = 13$$ s = 13 TeV. Three-particle cumulants are extracted from the correlation functions by applying the Kubo formalism, where the three-particle interaction contribution to these correlations can be isolated after subtracting the known two-body interaction terms. A negative cumulant is found for the p–p–p system, hinting to the presence of a residual three-body effect while for p–p– $$\Lambda $$ Λ the cumulant is consistent with zero. This measurement demonstrates the accessibility of three-baryon correlations at the LHC.

Abstract A newly developed observable for correlations between symmetry planes, which characterize the direction of the anisotropic emission of produced particles, is measured in Pb–Pb collisions at $$\sqrt{s_\text {NN}}$$ s NN  = 2.76 TeV with ALICE. This so-called Gaussian Estimator allows for the first time the study of these quantities without the influence of correlations between different flow amplitudes. The centrality dependence of various correlations between two, three and four symmetry planes is presented. The ordering of magnitude between these symmetry plane correlations is discussed and the results of the Gaussian Estimator are compared with measurements of previously used estimators. The results utilizing the new estimator lead to significantly smaller correlations than reported by studies using the Scalar Product method. Furthermore, the obtained symmetry plane correlations are compared to state-of-the-art hydrodynamic model calculations for the evolution of heavy-ion collisions. While the model predictions provide a qualitative description of the data, quantitative agreement is not always observed, particularly for correlators with significant non-linear response of the medium to initial state anisotropies of the collision system. As these results provide unique and independent information, their usage in future Bayesian analysis can further constrain our knowledge on the properties of the QCD matter produced inmore »ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions.« less