Nuclear cluster structure effect in ^16O+^16O collisions at the top RHIC energy

The impact of nuclear structure has garnered considerable attention in the high-energy nuclear physics community in recent years. This work focuses on studying the potential nuclear cluster structure in ^16O nuclei using anisotropic flow observables in O+O collisions at 200 GeV. Employing an improved AMPT model with various cluster structure configurations, we find that an extended effective parton formation time is necessary to align with the recent STAR experimental data. In addition, we reveal that the presented flow observables serve as sensitive probes for differentiating configurations of α-clustering of ^16O nuclei. The systematic AMPT calculations presented in this paper, along with comprehensive comparisons to forthcoming experimental measurements at RHIC and the LHC, pave the way for a novel approach to investigate the α-clustering structure of ^16O nuclei using O+O collisions at the ultra-relativistic energies.