Relativistic heavy ion collisions, which are performed at large experimental programs such as Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider's (RHIC) STAR experiment and the Large Hadron Collider's (LHC) experiments, can create an extremely hot and dense state of the matter known as the quark gluon plasma (QGP). A huge amount of sub-nucleonic particles are created in the collision processes and their interaction and subsequent evolution after the collision takes place is at the core of the understanding of the matter that builds up the Universe. It has recently been shown that event-by-event fluctuations in the spatial distribution between different collision events have great impact on the particle distributions that are measured after the evolution of the created system. Specifically, these distributions are greatly responsible for generating the observed azimuthal anisotropy in measurements. Furthermore, the eventual cooling and expansion of the fluctuating system can become very complex due to lumps of energy density and temperature, which affects the interaction of the particles that traverse the medium.
In this configuration, heavy flavor particles play a special role, as they are generally created at the initial stages of the process and have properties that allow them to retain "memory" from the interactions within the whole evolution of the system. However, the comparison between experimental data and theoretical or phenomenological predictions on the heavy flavor sector cannot fully explain the heavy quarks coupling with the medium and their subsequent hadronization process.
[Full abstract in file]
Within A Multi-Phase Transport model, we investigate decorrelation of event planes over pseudorapidity and its effect on azimuthal anisotropy measurements in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The decorrelation increases with increasing η gap between particles used to reconstruct the event planes. The third harmonic event planes are found even anticorrelated between forward and backward rapidities, the source of which may root in the opposite orientation of the collision geometry triangularities. The decorrelation may call into question the anisotropic flow measurements with pseudorapidity gap…
Intensive radiation of magnetic bremsstrahlung type (synchrotron radiation) resulting from the interaction of escaping quarks with the collective confining colour field is discussed as a new possible mechanism of observed direct photon anisotropy.
Elliptic flow in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions results from the hydrodynamic response to the spatial anisotropy of the initial density profile. A long-standing problem in the interpretation of flow data is that uncertainties in the initial anisotropy are mingled with uncertainties in the response. We argue that the non-Gaussianity of flow fluctuations in small systems can be used to disentangle the initial state from the response. We apply this method to recent measurements of anisotropic flow in Pb+Pb and p+Pb collisions at the LHC. The response coefficient is found to decrease mildl…
Simple power counting arguments in the dilute-dense framework of the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) Effective Field Theory predict that even and odd azimuthal anisotropy harmonics of two-particle correlations in proton-nucleus collisions at the LHC will respectively satisfy v^2_{2n} ~ N_{ch}^0 and v^2_{2n+1} ~ N_{ch}, where N_{ch} denotes the number of charged particles. We show that these expectations are borne out qualitatively, and even quantitatively, within systematic uncertainties, for v_2 and v_4 in comparisons with data from the ATLAS collaboration. We also observe that ATLAS data for th…
We analytically compute higher order cumulants of the azimuthal anisotropy, $c_2\{2m\}$, and corresponding $v_2\{2m\}$ at high transverse momentum in the dilute-dense limit. The dense target is considered in the framework of the McLerran-Venugopolan model. The absolute values of the harmonics $v_2\{2m\}$ of the azimuthal anisotropy are approximately equal, $|v_2\{2m\}| \approx |v_2\{2m'\}| $, for large $m$ and $m'$. However, the harmonics with order $2m=4n$ are complex. We argue that this is a generic property of connected graphs, which remains true in the dense-dense limit.
The LHC data on azimuthal anisotropy harmonics from PbPb collisions at center-of-mass energy 2.76 TeV per nucleon pair are analyzed and interpreted in the framework of the HYDJET++ model. The cross-talk of elliptic $v_2$ and triangular $v_3$ flow in the model generates both even and odd harmonics of higher order. Comparison with the experimental data shows that this mechanism is able to reproduce the $p_{\rm T}$ and centrality dependencies of quadrangular flow $v_4$, and also the basic trends for pentagonal $v_5$ and hexagonal $v_6$ flows.
We report our calculation of jet quenching and its azimuthal anisotropy in the high energy AA and high multiplicity pA and dA collisions. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, we improve our previous event-by-event studies, by properly implementing $p_t$ dependence in the modeling. We show that, within the jet "monography" scenario featuring a strong near-Tc-enhancement of jet energy loss, the computed high-$p_t$ nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$ and the harmonic coefficients in its azimuthal anisotropy $v_{2,\,3,\,4}$, agree well with the available data from both Relativistic Heavy …
We investigate the azimuthal anisotropy $v_2$ of particle production in nucleus-nucleus collisions in the maximum entropy approach. This necessitates two new phenomenological input parameters $δ$ and $λ_2$ compared with integrated multiplicity distributions. The parameter $δ$ describes the deformation of a flux tube and can be theoretically calculated in a bag model with a bag constant which depends on the density of surrounding flux tubes. The parameter $λ_2$ defines the anisotropy of the particle distribution in momentum space and can be connected to $δ$ via the uncertainty relation. In this…
Recent PHENIX measurements of the elliptic (v2) and hexadecapole (v4) Fourier flow coefficients for charged hadrons as a function of transverse momentum (pT), collision centrality and particle species are presented and compared with results from the PHOBOS and STAR collaborations respectively. The status of extensions to future PHENIX measurements at lower beam energies is also discussed.
In this paper we present with full details a systematic quantification, on an even-by-event basis, of the hard probe response to the geometry and fluctuations of the hot QCD matter created in heavy ion collisions at both the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The azimuthal anisotropy of jet quenching is extracted and decomposed as harmonic responses (for n=1,2,3,4,5,6) to the corresponding harmonics in the fluctuating initial condition. We show that such jet response harmonics are sensitive to the jet quenching models as well as to the bulk matter initi…
In this paper we present a phenomenological treatment of charm quark energy loss before fragmenting into D mesons and calculate nuclear modification factor, '$R_{AA}$' and azimuthal anisotropy, '$v_2$' of D mesons for lead on lead collision at LHC energy of $\sqrt{s}$=2.76 A TeV.
We review topics related to the first moment of azimuthal anisotropy ($v_1$), commonly known as directed flow, focusing on both charged particles and identified particles from heavy-ion collisions. Beam energies from the highest available, at the CERN LHC, down to projectile kinetic energies per nucleon of a few GeV per nucleon, as studied in experiments at the Brookhaven AGS, fall within our scope. We focus on experimental measurements and on theoretical work where direct comparisons with experiment have been emphasized. The physics addressed or potentially addressed by this review topic incl…
We propose an empirical model to determine the form of energy loss of charm quarks due to multiple scatterings in quark gluon plasma by demanding a good description of production of D mesons and non-photonic electrons in relativistic collision of heavy nuclei at RHIC and LHC energies. Best results are obtained when we approximate the momentum loss per collision $Δp_T \propto α\, p_T$, where $α$ is a constant depending on the centrality and the centre of mass energy. Comparing our results with those obtained earlier for drag coefficients estimated using Langevin equation for heavy quarks we fin…
The azimuthal anisotropy due to path-length dependent jet energy loss is studied in a simple jet absorption model that include event by event fluctuating Glauber geometry. Significant anisotropy coefficients v_n are observed for n=1,2 and 3, but they are very small for n>3. These coefficients are expected to result in a "ridge" for correlations between two independently produced jets. The correlations between the orientation of the n^{th}-order anisotropy induced by jet absorption (Φ_n^{QP}) and the n^{th}-order participant plane (Φ_n^{PP}) responsible for harmonic flow are studied. Tight corr…
Azimuthal anisotropy measurements for charged hadrons, characterized by the second order Fourier coefficient $v_2$, are used to investigate the path length ($L$) and transverse momentum ($p_T$) dependent jet quenching patterns of the QCD medium produced in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$\,TeV. $v_2$ shows a linear decrease as $1/\sqrt{p_T}$ and a linear increase with the medium path length difference ($ΔL$) in- and out of the $Ψ_2$ event plane. These patterns compliment a prior observation of the scaling of jet quenching ($R_{\rm AA}$) measurements. Together, they suggest that radiati…
Transverse spherocity is an event shape observable having a very unique capability to separate the events based on their geometrical shapes. Recent results from experiments at the LHC suggest that transverse spherocity is an important event classifier in small collision systems. In this work, we use transverse spherocity for the first time in heavy-ion collisions and perform an extensive study on azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles produced in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}} = 5.02$ TeV using A Multi-Phase Transport Model (AMPT). The azimuthal anisotropy is estimated using the 2-…
Measured 2nd and 4th azimuthal anisotropy coefficients v_{2,4}(N_{part}), p_T) are scaled with the initial eccentricity \varepsilon_{2,4}(N_{part}) of the collision zone and studied as a function of the number of participants N_{part} and the transverse momenta p_T. Scaling violations are observed for $p_T \alt 3$ GeV/c, consistent with a $p_T^2$ dependence of viscous corrections and a linear increase of the relaxation time with $p_T$. These empirical viscous corrections to flow and the thermal distribution function at freeze-out constrain estimates of the specific viscosity and the freeze-out…
Correlations between azimuthal anisotropy Fourier harmonics $v_{n}$ ($n = 2, 3, 4$) are studied using the events from PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\mathrm{NN}}}}=2.76$ TeV generated by the HYDJET++ and AMPT models, and compared to the corresponding experimental results obtained by the ATLAS Collaboration. The Fourier harmonics $v_{n}$ are measured over a wide centrality range using the two-particle azimuthal correlation method. The slopes of the $v_{2}$--$v_{3}$ correlation from both models are in a good agreement with the ATLAS data. The HYDJET++ model predicts a stronger slope for the $v_{…
We demonstrate that the striking systematics of two-particle azimuthal Fourier harmonics $v_2$ and $v_3$ in ultrarelativistic collisions of protons, deuterons and helium-3 ions off gold nuclei measured by the PHENIX Collaboration [arXiv:1805.02973] at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is reproduced in the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) effective field theory. This contradicts the claim in [arXiv:1805.02973] that their data rules out initial state based explanations. The underlying systematics of the effect, as discussed previously in [arXiv:1705.00745,arXiv:1706.06260,arXiv:1801.09704],…
We trace the development of elliptic anisotropy (v2) via parton-parton collision history in two transport models. The parton v2 is studied as a function of the number of collisions of each parton in Au+Au and d+Au collisions at sNN =200 GeV. It is found that the majority of v2 comes from the anisotropic escape probability of partons, with no fundamental difference at low and high transverse momenta. The contribution to v2 from hydrodynamic-type collective flow is found to be small. Only when the parton-parton cross-section is set unrealistically large does this contribution start to take over.…
We calculate the viscous pressure tensor of the quark-gluon plasma in strong magnetic field. It is azimuthally anisotropic and is characterized by five shear viscosity coefficients, four of which vanish when the field strength eB is much larger than the plasma temperature squared. We argue, that the azimuthally anisotropic viscous pressure tensor generates the transverse flow with asymmetry as large as 1/3, even not taking into account the collision geometry. We conclude, that the magnitude of the shear viscosity extracted from the experimental data ignoring the magnetic field must be underest…
Background: It has been proposed that the azimuthal distributions of heavy flavor quark-antiquark pairs may be modified in the medium of a heavy-ion collision. Purpose: This work tests this proposition through next-to-leading order (NLO) calculations of the azimuthal distribution, $dσ/dϕ$, including transverse momentum broadening, employing $<k_T^2>$ and fragmentation in exclusive $Q \bar Q$ pair production. While these studies were done for $p+p$, $p + \bar p$ and $p+$Pb collisions, understanding azimuthal angle correlations between heavy quarks in these smaller, colder systems is important f…
We trace the development of elliptic anisotropy ($v_2$) via parton-parton collision history in two transport models. The parton $v_2$ is studied as a function of the number of collisions of each parton in Au+Au and $d$+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}=200$ GeV. It is found that the majority of $v_2$ comes from the anisotropic escape probability of partons, with no fundamental difference at low and high transverse momenta. The contribution to $v_2$ from hydrodynamic-type collective flow is found to be small. Only when the parton-parton cross-section is set unrealistically large does this …
Here I review the transverse momentum distributions of identified hadrons produced in Au-Au collisions at RHIC and Pb-Pb collisions at LHC in the framework of recombination model. Minijets play an important role in generating shower partons in the intermediate $p_T$ region. At LHC, the resultant soft shower partons are even found to dominate over the thermal partons in the non-strange sector. The azimuthal anisotropy of the produced hadrons could also be explained as the consequence of the effects of minijets. Harmonic analysis of the $ϕ$ dependence leads to $v_n(p_T, b)$ that can be well prod…
LHC data on the correlations of the elliptic flow $v_2$ of particles at low and high transverse momenta $p_T$ from Pb+Pb collisions at center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 5.02$ TeV are analyzed in the framework of the HYDJET++ model. This model includes soft and hard components which allows to describe the region of both low and high transverse momenta. The origin of $v_2$ values in different $p_T$ regions is investigated at different centralities. It is shown that the experimentally observed correlations between $v_2$ at low and high $p_T$ in peripheral lead-lead collision…
One of the event shape observables, the transverse spherocity ($S_0$), has been studied successfully in small collision systems such as proton-proton collisions at the LHC as a tool to separate jetty and isotropic events. It has a unique capability to distinguish events based on their geometrical shapes. In this work, we report the first implementation of transverse spherocity in heavy-ion collisions using a multi-phase transport model (AMPT). We have performed an extensive study of azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles produced in heavy-ion collisions as a function of transverse spherocit…
We investigate the system size dependence of jet-quenching by analyzing transverse momentum spectra of neutral pions in Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}}$ =200 GeV for different centralities. The fast partons are assumed to lose energy by radiating gluons as they traverse the plasma and undergo multiple collisions. The energy loss per collision, $ε$, is taken as proportional to $E$(where $E$ is the energy of the parton), proportional to $\sqrt{E}$, or a constant depending on whether the formation time of the gluon is less than the mean path, greater than the mean free path …
In event by event hydrodynamic model, we have simulated 30-40\% Au+Au collisions at RHIC and computed the slope parameter from the invariant pion distribution. In each event, the slope parameter fluctuates azimuthally. Fourier expansion coefficients $T_n$ for the slope parameter and the Fourier expansion coefficients $v_n$ for the azimuthal distribution $\frac{dN}{dϕ}$ are found to be strongly correlated. Strong correlation between the two expansion coefficients suggests that in addition to azimuthal distribution, fluctuations in the slope parameter of the invariant distribution can as well be…
We extend the CGC approach to calculation of the double inclusive gluon production by including high-density effect in the CGC wave function of the projectile (proton). Our main result is that these effects lead to the appearance of odd harmonics in the two-particle correlation C(k,p). We find that in the high momentum limit, |k|,|p|>>Q_s, this results in a positive c_1{2}. Additionally when the magnitudes of the two momenta are approximately equal, |k|/|p| ~ 1, the density effects also generate a positive third harmonic c_3{2}, which translates into a non-vanishing v_3 when the momenta of the…
Recent measurements of the azimuthal anisotropy of direct photons in heavy-ion collisions at the energies of RHIC show that it is of the same order as the hadronic one. This finding appears to contradict the expected dominance of photon production from a quark-gluon plasma at an early stage of a heavy-ion collision. A possible explanation of the strong azimuthal anisotropy of the photons, given recently, is based on the presence of a large magnetic field in the early phase of a collision. In this letter, we propose a method to experimentally measure the degree to which a magnetic field in heav…
Anisotropic flow of hadronic matter is considered as a sensitive tool to detect the early stage dynamics of high-energy heavy-ion collisions. Taking the event by event fluctuations of the collision geometry into account, the elliptic flow parameter and the triangular flow parameter derived from the azimuthal distribution of produced hadrons, are investigated within the framework of a multiphase transport (AMPT) model, at a collision energy that in near future will typically be available at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research. The dependence of elliptic and triangular flow parameters o…
We investigate the survival rate of an initial momentum anisotropy (${v}_2^{ini}$), not spatial anisotropy, to the final state in a multi-phase transport (AMPT) model in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=200~GeV. It is found that both the final-state parton and charged hadron $v_2$ show a linear dependence versus $v_2^{ini}\{\rm PP\}$ with respect to the participant plane (PP). It is found that the slope of this linear dependence (referred to as the survive rate) increases with transverse momentum ($p_T$), reaching~$\sim$100\% at $p_T$$\sim$2.5 GeV/c for both parton and charged hadron. The s…
It is commonly believed that azimuthal anisotropies in relativistic heavy ion collisions are generated by hydrodynamic evolution of the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma. Here we use transport models to study how azimuthal anisotropies depend on the number of collisions that each parton suffers. We find that the majority of $v_2$ comes from the anisotropic escape of partons, not from the parton collective flow, for semi-central Au+Au collisions at 200A GeV. As expected, the fraction of $v_2$ from the anisotropic particle escape is even higher for smaller systems such as d+Au. Our transpo…
Anisotropic flow can offer significant information of evolution dynamics in heavy-ion collisions. A systematic study of the directed flow $v_1$ and elliptic flow $v_2$ of hard photons and free nucleons is performed for $^{40}$Ca+$^{40}$Ca collisions in a framework of isospin dependent quantum molecular dynamics (IQMD) model. The study firstly reveals that thermal photons emitted in intermediate-energy heavy-ion collisions have the behaviors of directed and elliptic flows. The interesting phenomena of incident energy dependence of $v_1$ and $v_2$ for thermal photons in central collisions also c…
Xe+Xe collision at relativistic energies may provide us with a partonic system whose size is approximately in between those produced by p+p and Pb+Pb collisions. The experimental results on anisotropic flow in Xe+Xe and Pb+Pb collisions should provide us with an opportunity to study system size dependence of $v_2$. In the present work, we have used AMPT transport model to calculate charged particles' $v_2$ for Xe+Xe collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=5.44 TeV. We have also tried to demonstrate the no. of constituent quark, $N_q$, and $m_T$ scaling of the elliptic flow. We find that $n_q$ scaling of…
We summarize some recent ideas relating to anisotropic particle production in high-energy collisions. Anisotropic gluon distributions lead to anisotropies of the single-particle azimuthal distribution and hence to disconnected contributions to multi-particle cumulants. When these dominate, the four-particle elliptic anisotropy $c_2\{4\}$ changes sign. On the other hand, connected diagrams for $m$-particle cumulants are found to quickly saturate with increasing $m$, a ``coherence'' quite unlike conventional ``non-flow'' contributions such as decays. Finally, we perform a first exploratory pheno…
We have studied the average charged particle density ($<$dN$_{ch}$/d$η$$>$), transverse momentum ($p_{\mathrm{T}}$) spectra, $<$$p_{\mathrm{T}}$$>$ and azimuthal anisotropies of inclusive charged particles produced in Xe+Xe collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.44 TeV using A Multiphase Transport Model (AMPT), which includes the deformation of Xe$^{129}$ nucleus. Calculations have been performed with the string melting version of AMPT model and compared with the recent measurements from the ALICE experiment. The model results over predict the measured $<$dN$_{ch}$/d$η$$>$ for central collisions, a…
Heavy flavor probes provide important information about the in-medium properties of the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy-ion collisions. In this work, we investigate the effects of 2D+1 event-by-event fluctuating hydrodynamic backgrounds on the nuclear suppression factor and momentum anisotropies of heavy flavor mesons and non-photonic electrons. Using the state-of-the-art D and B mesons modular simulation code (called "DAB-MOD"), we perform a systematic comparison of different transport equations in the same background, including a few energy loss models --- with and without energy loss f…
