Much of the present experimental effort at RHIC is now directed towards understanding the properties of the hot and dense colored medium created in A+A collisions. Recent results from PHENIX on the dynamical evolution of the medium and its response to high momentum probes are presented, and their impact on our overall understanding of heavy-ion collisions is discussed.
With the measurement of several observables at SPS energies that demonstrate non-monotonic behavior as a function of centrality and $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$, there is growing interest in pursuing a scan of relativistic heavy ion collisions at low energies at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The capabilities of the PHENIX experiment to take quality measurements at low RHIC energies is described and directly demonstrated with analyses of Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 19.6 GeV and Cu+Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 22.5 GeV. The contribution of upgrades to the PHENIX detector in the upcomin…
We review some important results from the PHENIX experiment at RHIC. They were obtained in a unique environment for studying QCD bulk matter at temperatures and densities that sur- pass the limits where hadrons exist as individual entities, so raising to prominence the quark- gluon degrees of freedom. We present measurements of nuclear modification factors for neutral pions, light favors (strange hadrons), direct-photons and non-photonic electrons from decays of particles carrying charm or beauty quarks. We interpret the large suppression of hadron produc- tion at high transverse momenta as re…
We review recent results on hard observables in p+p, d+A and A+A collisions obtained by the PHENIX experiment. Emphasis is put on those measurements that provide insight into the properties of hot QCD media expected to be created in nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC energies. Direct photon spectra, jet properties and heavy quarks production measured in p+p and d+Au collisions are compared to the same observables extracted in heavy ion collisions to find modifications due to the presence of hot QCD matter.
Exploration of the rich structure of the QCD phase diagram is an important topic in the RHIC heavy ion program. One of the ultimate goals of this program is to search for the critical endpoint. Investigation of the space-time structure of hadron emissions at various phase transition points using Bose-Einstein correlations of identical bosons may provide insight on the location of the critical endpoint. PHENIX has performed comprehensive measurements of the Bose-Einstein correlation in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 15, 19, 27, 39, 62.4, and 200 GeV, where we incorporated Levy-type source func…
The PHENIX Experiment at RHIC has conducted a beam energy scan at several collision energies in order to search for signatures of the QCD critical point and the onset of deconfinement. PHENIX has conducted measurements of transverse energy production, muliplicity fluctuations, and the skewness and kurtosis of net charge distributions. The data analyzed to date show no significant indications of the presence of the critical point.
Data on hadron production at high transverse momentum ($p_T>$ 2 GeV/$c$) in p+p, d+Au, and Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}$ = 200 GeV from the PHENIX experiment at RHIC are reviewed. The single inclusive spectrum of light hadrons produced in central Au+Au reactions shows significant differences compared to p+p and d+Au collisions, and provides interesting information on the properties of the underlying QCD medium present in heavy-ion reactions at collider energies.
Measurement of the in-medium energy loss of fast partons is one of the most active topics in heavy-ion physics. Such studies provide an opportunity to gain insight into the fundamental behavior of QCD processes by studying them away from vacuum conditions. A promising channel for relating theoretical models to data are two particle correlations using direct photon triggers. Recent results on this observeable using the PHENIX detector are presented.
The PHENIX Experiment at RHIC has conducted a beam energy scan at several collision energies in order to search for signatures of the QCD critical point and the onset of deconfinement. PHENIX has conducted measurements of transverse energy production, muliplicity fluctuations, the skewness and kurtosis of net charge distributions, Hanbury-Brown Twiss correlations, charged hadron flow, and energy loss. The data analyzed to date show no significant indications of the presence of the critical point.
The PHENIX Run 4 Au+Au dataset provides a powerful opportunity for exploring the angular anisotropy of identified particle yields at high pT. Complementing traditional v2 measurements, we present pi0 yields as a function of angle with reaction plane, up to pT 10 GeV/c. The centrality dependence of the angular anisotropy allows us to probe the density and path-length dependence of the energy loss of hard-scattered partons. We will discuss various mechanisms for particle production in this high pT region.
Hadrons carrying heavy quarks, i.e. charm or bottom, are important probes of the hot and dense medium created in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Heavy quark-antiquark pairs are mainly produced in initial hard scattering processes of partons. While some of the produced pairs form bound quarkonia, the vast majority hadronize into particles carrying open heavy flavor. Heavy quark production has been studied by the PHENIX experiment at RHIC via measurements of single leptons from semi-leptonic decays in both the electron channel at mid-rapidity and in the muon channel at forward rapidity. A lar…
The PHENIX experiment has conducted searches for the QCD critical point with measurements of multiplicity fluctuations, transverse momentum fluctuations, event-by-event kaon-to-pion ratios, elliptic flow, and correlations. Measurements have been made in several collision systems as a function of centrality and transverse momentum. The results do not show significant evidence of critical behavior in the collision systems and energies studied, although several interesting features are discussed.
Different regions on the QCD phase diagram can be investigated by varying the collision energy and the centrality in heavy-ion collisions. In our latest measurements at the PHENIX experiment at RHIC, we utilize Lévy-type sources to describe the measured HBT correlation functions. In this paper we report the current status of the analysis of the centrality and beam energy dependence of the Lévy source parameters in Au+Au collisions from $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 15 GeV to $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV.
The last decades of high energy physics revealed, that in ultra-relativistic ion-ion collisions, a strongly interacting quark gluon plasma (sQGP) is created. Varying the collision energy allows for the investigation of the phase diagram of QCD matter. The nature of the quark-hadron transition can be studied via femtoscopy, as the investigation of momentum correlations in heavy ion reactions reveals the space-time structure of the hadron production of the sQGP. Going beyond the Gaussian assumption the shape of this source may be described by Lévy distributions. In this paper we report on recent…
The large mass of the charm quark, along with the abundance of J/psi mesons observed from proton-proton collisions at PHENIX, allow for new measurements which are sensitive to basic properties of QCD. Two measurements are presented in this document: a transverse single-spin asymmetry (SSA) of J/psi production and the angular distribution for decay leptons in various reference frames. The decay distribution is directly sensitive to the J/psi production mechanism, while the transverse SSA is also sensitive to the distribution of gluons in a transversely polarized proton. Taken together, the two …
Quarkonia provide a sensitive probe of the properties of the hot dense medium created in high energy heavy ion collisions. Hard scattering processes result in the production of heavy quark pairs that interact with the collision medium during hadronization. These in medium interactions convey information about the fundamental properties of the medium itself and can be used to examine the modification of the QCD confining potential in the collision environment. Baseline measurements from the d+Au and p+p collision systems can be used to distinguish cold nuclear matter effects while measurements …
The RHIC Beam Energy Scan focuses on mapping the QCD phase diagram and pinpointing the location of a possible critical end point. Bose-Einstein correlations and event-by-event fluctuations of conserved quantities, measured as a function of centrality and collision energy, are promising tools in these studies. Recent lattice QCD and statistical thermal model calculations predict that higher-order cumulants of the fluctuations are sensitive indicators of the phase transition. Products of these cumulants can be used to extract the freeze-out parameters (1) and to locate the critical point (2). Tw…
Beam Energy Scan (BES) program at RHIC is important to search for the existence of the critical point in the QCD phase diagram. Lattice QCD have shown that the predictions of the susceptibility of the medium formed in heavy-ion collisions can be sensitive to the various moments (mean ($μ$) =${<x>}$, variance ($σ^2$) = ${<(x-μ)^2>}$, skewness (S) = $\frac{<(x-μ)^3>}{σ^3}$ and kurtosis ($κ$) =$\frac{<(x-μ)^4>}{σ^4} -3$) of conserved quantities like net-baryon number ($Δ$B), net-electric charge ($Δ$Q) and net-strangeness ($Δ$S). Any non-monotonic behavior of the higher moments would confirm the e…
The measurement of phi mesons provides a unique and complementary method for exploring properties of the hot and dense medium created in the relativistic heavy ion collisions. It has a relatively small hadronic interaction cross section and is sensitive to the increase of strangeness (strangeness enhancement), a phenomenon associated with soft particles in bulk matter. Measurements in the dilepton channels are especially interesting since leptons interact only electromagnetically, thus carrying the information from their production phase directly to the detector. Measurements in different nucl…
We present the first positive direct photon results in Au+Au at sqrt{s_NN} = 200 GeV along with initial p+p results at the same energy. The p+p result is found to be consistent with NLO perturbative QCD predictions within its large uncertainties. In central Au+Au collisions, an excess over expected background as large as 200-300% is observed from p_T = 4-12 GeV/c. This large signal is shown to be consistent with the scaled pQCD photon prediction, together with suppression of meson background sources.
Quarkonia provide a sensitive probe of the properties of the hot dense medium created in high energy heavy ion collisions. Hard scattering processes result in the production of heavy quark pairs that interact with the collision medium during hadronization. These in-medium interactions convey information about the fundamental properties of the medium itself and can be used to examine the modification of the QCD confining potential in the collision environment. Baseline measurements from p+p and d+Au collision systems are used to distinguish cold nuclear matter effects while measurements from he…
Results from the PHENIX experiment at RHIC on direct photon production in p+p, d+Au, and Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV are presented. In p+p collisions, direct photon production at high p_T behaves as expected from perturbative QCD calculations. The p+p measurement serves as a baseline for direct photon production in Au+Au collisions. In d+Au collisions, no effects of cold nuclear matter are found within the large uncertainty of the measurement. In Au+Au collisions, the production of high p_T direct photons scales as expected for particle production in hard scatterings. This support…
After ten years of running, the PHENIX Collaboration is starting to lay out the compelling physics that RHIC, as the most versatile hadron collider in the world, will be well positioned to explore beyond the program planned for upgrades already in progress. As the fields that RHIC set out to investigate have advanced and evolved, new questions and directions have arisen at the frontiers of QCD, and we have exciting opportunities before us to continue to confront the challenges and surprises of strong interactions into the next decade. The latest thoughts of the PHENIX Collaboration on this ong…
One of the fundamental goals of the PHENIX experiment is to understand the structure of cold nuclear matter, since this serves as the initial state for heavy-ion collisions. Knowing the initial state is vital for interpreting measurements from heavy-ion collisions. Moreover, the structure of the cold nucleus by itself is interesting since it is a test-bed for our understanding of QCD. In particular there is the possibility of novel QCD effects such as gluon saturation at low-x in the nucleus. At RHIC we can probe the behavior of gluons at low-x by measuring the pair cross-section of di-hadrons…
The heavy flavor studies at RHIC help improve the knowledge of the bottom/charm quark production and can test Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). Compared to the LHC/Tevatron, the RHIC heavy flavor production originates from different partonic sub-processes and has a complementary kinematic coverage. The PHENIX forward rapidity silicon vertex detector (FVTX) provides precise determination of the event vertex, tracking and the Distance of Closest Approach (DCA) of charged tracks. This detector allows direct access to the $B$ meson production via measurements of non-prompt $J/ψ\to μ^{+} + μ^{-}$ withi…
We present the latest results on event-by-event fluctuations of charged particle multiplicity in Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV and 62.4 GeV measured by PHENIX experiment at RHIC. The two particle correlation length to discuss order parameters, which can be extracted from scale dependence of the fluctuations, is supposed to be sensitive to the critical points of QCD phase transition. The obtained correlation length with respect to the pseudo rapidity gap indicates the power law behavior as a function of the number of participant nucleons for Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{…
We present the first measurements of the nuclear modification factor (RAA) for flavor-separated b, c-quark electrons in Au+Au collisions at 200 GeV. The newly installed Silicon Vertex Tracker is used to measure the distance of closest approach distributions of electrons at midrapidity (|eta|< 0.35) over the transverse momentum range 1 < pt < 5 GeV/c. From this, the relative fraction of bottom (b) and charm (c) quarks is determined in both the p+p and Au+Au collision systems, which form the basis of the measured RAA . In p+p, we observe that a FONLL perturbative QCD calculation of b->e/(c->e+b-…
Direct-photon measurements in p+p and Au+Au collisions at sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200 GeV from the PHENIX experiment are presented. The p+p results are found to be in good agreement with next-to-leading-order (NLO) perturbative QCD calculations. Direct-photon yields in Au+Au collisions scale with the number of inelastic nucleon-nucleon collisions and don't exhibit the strong suppression observed for charged hadrons and neutral pions. This observation is consistent with models which attribute the suppression of high-pT hadrons to energy loss of quarks and gluons in the hot and dense medium produced in A…
Measurement of quantumstatistical correlation functions in high energy nuclear physics is an important tool to investigate the QCD phase diagram. It may be used to search for the critical point, and also to understand underlying processes such as in-medium mass modifications or partially coherent particle production. Furthermore, the measurements of the femtoscopic correlation functions shed light on the space-time structure of particle production. Consequently, the precise measurements and description of the correlation functions are essential. The shape of two-pion Bose-Einstein correlation …
We present a review of the studies related to establishing the QCD phase diagram through high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. We particularly focus on the experimental results related to the formation of a quark-gluon phase, crossover transition and search for a critical point in the QCD phase diagram.
Experimental observations of strikingly large transverse single-spin asymmetries (TSSAs) opened a window into quark and gluon dynamics present in hadronic collisions, revealing large spin-momentum correlations within nucleons and in the process of forming hadrons. Though originally measured in lower energy fixed target experiments, they have been found to persist in collisions with momentum transfer well into the perturbative regime of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and yet their origin remains poorly understood. TSSA measurements have allowed for the development of both transverse momentum depe…
This contribution presents a brief summary of the recent past efforts to experimentally explore the QCD phase diagram at high baryon chemical potentials through heavy-ion collisions. A few measurements are highlighted to present the current status in the search for a first-order phase transition, for a possible critical endpoint, and for evidence of chiral symmetry restoration. Finally, the outlook for the ongoing beam energy scan II program and future experiments at the FAIR complex are discussed.
The measurement of transverse single spin asymmetries ($A_N$) provides insight into the structure of the nucleon. Several mechanisms have been proposed that attempt to explain $A_N$ based on QCD, and additional measurements of $A_N$ for different processes further constrain these models. Using the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), we study transversely polarized p+p collisions. Results from PHENIX and other experiments show significant asymmetries in the forward region, which could be due to contributions from both the Sivers and the Collins effects. Studying the s…
We update the study of the polarisation of J/psi produced in proton-proton collisions at RHIC at sqrt(s)=200 GeV using the QCD-based Colour-Singlet Model (CSM), including next-to-leading order partonic matrix elements from gluon and light quark fusion and leading-order contributions from charm-quark initiated processes. To do so, we also evaluate the corresponding cross section differential in P_T which agrees qualitatively with the measurements of PHENIX in the central and forward regions at low P_T -- for instance below 2 GeV --, while emphasising the need for Initial State Radiation (ISR) r…
Heavy flavor and quarkona production are important hard probes to test the Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) and measure the properties of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in high energy heavy ion collisions. The new PHENIX mid- and forward-rapidity silicon vertex detectors provide precise Distance of Closest Approach (DCA) determination, allowing charm and bottom yields identification, and improve di-muon mass resolution for charmonia studies. The relative $ψ(2S)$ over $J/ψ$(1S) yields measured in $p$+$p$, $p$+Al and $p$+Au data at $\sqrt{s}=$200 GeV help us to understand final state effects o…
As a colorless probe, direct photons balance the $p_T$ of the away-side jet at leading order. Direct photon-hadron correlations are thus an excellent probe for nuclear structure and QCD effects, including parton energy loss in the Quark-Gluon Plasma. PHENIX has measured $π^{0}$ and direct photon-triggered two-particle azimuthal correlations in a variety of collision systems ranging from $p$$+$$p$ to Au+Au at 200 GeV. In $p$$+$Au and $d$$+$Au collisions, no modification of the per-trigger jet yield or away-side correlation width compared to $p$$+$$p$ collisions is observed for direct photon tri…
After decades of painstaking research, the field of heavy ion physics has reached an exciting new era. Evidence is mounting that we can create a high temperature, high density, strongly interacting ``bulk matter'' state in the laboratory -- perhaps even a quark-gluon plasma. This strongly interacting matter is likely to provide qualitative new information about the fundamental strong interaction, described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). These lectures provide a summary of experimental heavy ion research, with particular emphasis on recent results from RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) a…
The measurement of electrons from semi-leptonic decay of heavy flavor in $p+p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=200 GeV has been carried out with the PHENIX detector in the RHIC Year-2005 and Year-2006 run. This measurement provides a good test of the perturbative QCD and the important base line to study the medium created in Au+Au collisions at RHIC. The behavior of bottom in the medium is expected to be largely different from that of charm. Therefore, the determination of the fraction of bottom in the electrons from heavy flavor is necessary to understand the behavior of heavy quarks in the matter. …
It has been observed in central Au+Au collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) that the yield of neutral pions at high transverse momentum (pT> 5 GeV/c) is strongly suppressed compared to the one expected from p+p collisions scaled by the number of binary collisions. This suppression is considered to be due to the energy lost by hard scattered partons in the medium (jet quenching), which results in a decrease of the yield at a given pT. The magnitude of the suppression depends on the path length of scattered partons in the medium. Studying the path length dependence of energy loss …
Highlights of news from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in the period July 2014-June 2015 are presented. The news this year was mostly very positive. The major event at BNL was the startup and dedication of the new NSLS II, "the World's brightest Synchrotron Light Source". The operation of RHIC was outstanding with a polarized p+p run at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV with integrated luminosity that exceeded the sum of all previous p+p integrated luminosity at this $\sqrt{s}$. For the first time at RHIC asymmetric p+Au and p+Al runs were mad…
Full jet reconstruction in heavy-ion collisions enables a complete study of the modification of jet structure due to energy loss in hot and dense QCD matter, but is challenging due to the high multiplicity environment. The STAR and PHENIX collaborations at RHIC have recently presented measurements of fully reconstructed jets from p+p, Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 200 \mathrm{GeV}$. We review the first results on inclusive jet spectra, di-jets and fragmentation functions and discuss their implications on understanding of jet quenching.
The PHENIX experiment has measured {\piz}s in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_{NN}) = 200 GeV, with good statistics for transverse momentum, pT, up to 20 GeV/c. A fivefold suppression is found, which is essentially constant for 5<pT<20 GeV/c. While the production of high pT pions in high energy p+p collisions is well described in the framework of perturbative QCD, production in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions involves additional degrees of freedom related the opacity of the deconfined medium produced in the collisions. The uncertainties of the latest measurement are small enough to constrai…
Relativistic heavy-ion collisions and the lattice QCD Monte-Carlo simulations are important ``experimental'' tools for investigating the properties of the medium described by QCD under extreme conditions. After briefly examining their characteristics, I pick up the study of the critical points in QCD as an example of the research subjects that these two tools play complementary roles and discuss recent topics that have been achieved with the use of each tool.
Beam energy scan programs in heavy-ion collisions aim to explore the QCD phase structure at high baryon density. Sensitive observables are applied to probe the signatures of the QCD phase transition and critical point in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and SPS. Intriguing structures, such as dip, peak and oscillation, have been observed in the energy dependence of various observables. In this paper, an overview is given and corresponding physics implications will be discussed for the experimental highlights from the beam energy scan programs at the STAR, PHENIX and NA61/SHINE experiments. Further…
We present an overview of the status of the studies related to the phase diagram of strong interactions through high-energy nuclear collisions. We discuss both the theoretical and experimental status of establishing the various QCD phase structures in the phase diagram, such as, quark-gluon phase, quark-hadron crossover, crossover temperature, phase boundary and critical point.
Features of collectivity observed in high energy A+A collision systems at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) imply a strongly coupled quark gluon plasma (QGP) that flows. One defining feature of collectivity is long-range angular correlations which are characterized experimentally by measuring the azimuthal anisotropy of particles well separated in rapidity. Evidence indicating long-range angular correlations include the appearance of the so-called near-side "ridge" in correlation functions and $p_T$ dependent flow components ($v_N$). These features …
We provide a concise review on recent theory advancements towards full-fledged (3+1)D dynamical descriptions of relativistic nuclear collisions at finite baryon density. Heavy-ion collisions at different collision energies produce strongly-coupled matter and probe the QCD phase transition at the crossover, critical point, and first-order phase transition regions. Dynamical frameworks provide a quantitative tool to extract properties of hot QCD matter and map fireballs to the QCD phase diagram. Outstanding challenges are highlighted when confronting current theoretical frameworks with current a…
Following our previous proposal [1], we construct a class of good "lattice cross sections" (LCSs), from which we could study partonic structure of hadrons from ab initio lattice QCD calculations. These good LCSs, on the one hand, can be calculated directly in lattice QCD, and on the other hand, can be factorized into parton distribution functions (PDFs) with calculable coefficients, in the same way as QCD factorization for factorizable hadronic cross sections. PDFs could be extracted from QCD global analysis of the lattice QCD generated data of LCSs. We also show that proposed functions for la…
Thermal photon production at mid-rapidity in Au+Au reactions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV is studied in the framework of a 2D+1 hydrodynamical model that describes efficiently the bulk identified hadron spectra at RHIC. The combined thermal plus NLO pQCD photon spectrum is in good agreement with the yields measured by the PHENIX experiment for all Au+Au centralities. Within our model, we demonstrate that the correlation of the thermal photon slopes with the charged hadron multiplicity in each centrality bin provides direct empirical information on the underlying degrees of freedom and on the e…
Polarized proton-proton collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) provide unique opportunities to study the spin structure of the nucleon. We will highlight recent results on the nucleon spin structure from the STAR and PHENIX experiments at RHIC: (1) A sizable gluon polarization in the proton is measured with longitudinal double spin asymmetries of jet and hadron production; (2) Longitudinal single spin asymmetries in W boson production improve constraints on the sea quark polarization. The new spin asymmetry results for W boson confirmed the SU(2) flavor asymmetry of the light…
Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) phase diagram is usually plotted as temperature (T) versus the chemical potential associated with the conserved baryon number (μ_{B}). Two fundamental properties of QCD, related to confinement and chiral symmetry, allows for two corresponding phase transitions when T and μ_{B} are varied. Theoretically the phase diagram is explored through non-perturbative QCD calculations on lattice. The energy scale for the phase diagram (Λ_{QCD} ~ 200 MeV) is such that it can be explored experimentally by colliding nuclei at varying beam energies in the laboratory. In this paper…
Strong magnetic fields are commonly generated in off-central relativistic heavy-ion collisions in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Lab and in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and have been used to probe the topological configurations of the QCD vacua. A strong magnetic field can affect the character and location of the QCD critical point, influence the QCD phases, and lead to anomalous transport of charge. To take advantage of the magnetic field as a probe of QCD at higher baryon densities, we are going to need experiments capable to scan the lower energy regi…
This document provides a summary of the discussions during the recent joint QCD Town Meeting at Temple University of the status of and future plans for the research program of the relativistic heavy-ion community. A list of compelling questions is formulated, and a number of recommendations outlining the greatest research opportunities and detailing the research priorities of the heavy-ion community, voted on and unanimously approved at the Town Meeting, are presented. They are supported by a broad discussion of the underlying physics and its relation to other subfields. Areas of overlapping i…
In this paper, dedicated to the memory of the late Prof. Jean Cleymans, the nuclear modification factors, $R_{xA}$, are investigated for pion production in small system collisions, measured by PHENIX experiment at RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider). The theoretical framework is the transverse momentum $k_T$-factorization formalism for hard processes at small momentum fraction, $x$. Evidence for collective expansion and thermal effects for pions, produced at equilibrium, is studied based on phenomenological parametrization of blast-wave type in the relaxation time approximation. The depende…
The collective behavior of hadrons and of electromagnetic radiation in heavy-ion collisions has been widely used to study the properties of the the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). Indeed this collectivity, as measured by anisotropic flow coefficients, can be used to constrain the transport properties of QGP. The goal of this contribution is to investigate the influence of the specific bulk viscosity ($ζ/s$) on dilepton production, both at Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies. We explore the sensitivity of dileptons to dynamical features that bulk viscosity …
Three-nucleon forces (3NF) are investigated from two-flavor lattice QCD simulations. We utilize the Nambu-Bethe-Salpeter (NBS) wave function to determine two-nucleon forces (2NF) and 3NF in the same framework. As a first exploratory study, we extract 3NF in which three nucleons are aligned linearly with an equal spacing. This is the simplest geometrical configuration which reduces the huge computational cost of calculating the NBS wave function. Quantum numbers of the three-nucleon system are chosen to be (I, J^P)=(1/2,1/2^+) (the triton channel). Lattice QCD simulations are performed using N_…
We study inclusive heavy quarkonium production with definite polarizations in polarized proton-proton collisions using the non-relativistic QCD color-octet mechanism. We present results for rapidity distributions of cross sections and spin asymmetries for the production of J/psi and psi' with specific polarizations in polarized p-p collisions at \sqrt s = 200 GeV and 500 GeV at the RHIC within the PHENIX detector acceptance range.
The past decade has seen huge advances in experimental measurements made in heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and more recently at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). These new data, in combination with theoretical advances from calculations made in a variety of frameworks, have led to a broad and deep knowledge of the properties of thermal QCD matter. Increasingly quantitative descriptions of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in these collisions have established that the QGP is a strongly coupled liquid with the lowest value of specific viscosity ever measured…