Heavy-flavour in relativistic nuclear collisions: recent developments
Andrea Beraudo
备注：
6 pages, proceedings of the "LFC19: Strong dynamics for physics within and beyond the Standard Model at LHC and Future Colliders" workshop. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1910.03886
Transport calculations represent the major tool to simulate the modifications induced by the presence of a hot-deconfined medium on the production of heavy-flavour particles in high-energy nuclear collisions. After a brief description of the approach and of the major achievements in its phenomenological applications we discuss some recent developments. In particular we focus on observables arising from event-by-event fluctuations in the distribution of deposited energy (odd flow harmonics, event-shape-engineering) and from the tilting of the initial geometry with respect to the beam axis (directed flow), with a possible role played by the strong magnetic field generated by the spectator nucleons.
Reconstructed jets initiated from heavy quarks provide a powerful tool to probe the properties of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) and to explore the mass hierarchy of jet quenching. In this article, we review the recent theoretical progresses on heavy-flavour jets in high-energy nuclear collisions at the RHIC and LHC. We focus on the yields and substructures of charm and bottom quark jets with jet quenching effect, such as the nuclear modification factors, transverse momentum imbalance, angular correlation, radial profiles, fragmentation functions, the "dead-cone" effect, etc.
Transport calculations represent the major tool to simulate the modifications induced by the presence of a hot-deconfined medium on the production of heavy-flavour particles in high-energy nuclear collisions. After a brief description of the approach and of the major achievements in its phenomenological applications we discuss some recent developments. From the theory side we focus on the evaluation of transport coefficients and on recent formulations of the problem of heavy-flavour in-medium propagation in the language of open quantum systems. From a more phenomenological perspective we give …
Isospin-dependent nuclear forces play a fundamental role in nuclear structure. In relativistic models of nuclear structure constructed at the quark level these isovector nuclear forces affect the u and d quarks differently, leading to non-trivial flavour dependent modifications of the nuclear parton distributions. We explore the effect of isospin dependent forces for parity-violating deep inelastic scattering on nuclear targets and demonstrate that the cross-sections for nuclei with N /= Z are sensitive to the flavour dependence of the EMC effect. Indeed, for nuclei like lead and gold we find …
Transport calculations are the tool to study medium modifications of heavy-flavour particle distributions in high-energy nuclear collisions. We give a brief overview on their state-of-the art, on the information one can extract, on the questions remaining open and on further analysis to carry out in the near future.
Transport calculations are the tool to study medium modifications of heavy-flavour particle distributions in high-energy nuclear collisions. We give a brief overview on their state-of-the art as well as on the questions remaining open, from the evaluation of the transport coefficients to the effects of in-medium hadronization, from the rescattering in the hadronic phase to the possible presence of hot-medium effects also in small systems, like proton-nucleus collisions.
We present results for the quenching, elliptic flow and azimuthal correlations of heavy flavour particles in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions obtained through the POWLANG transport setup, developed in the past to study the propagation of heavy quarks in the Quark-Gluon Plasma and here extended to include a modeling of their hadronization in the presence of a medium. Hadronization is described as occurring via the fragmentation of strings with endpoints given by the heavy (anti-)quark Q(Qbar) and a thermal parton $qbar(q)$ from the medium. The flow of the light quarks is shown to affect s…
It is argued that in heavy ion collisions at LHC there could be a sizeable production of baryons containing two or three heavy quarks from statistical coalescence. This production mechanism is peculiar of Quark Gluon Plasma and the predicted rates, in heavy ion collisions at LHC energy, exceed those from a purely hadronic scenario, particularly for Xi_bc and Omega_ccc. Thus, besides the interest in the discovery of these new states, enhanced ratios of these baryons over singly heavy flavoured hadrons, like B or D, in heavy ion collisions with respect to pp at the same energy, would be a clear …
We employ the POWLANG transport setup, developed over the last few years, to provide new predictions for several heavy-flavour observables in relativistic heavy-ion collisions from RHIC to LHC center-of-mass energies. In particular, we focus on the development of the flow-harmonics $v_2$ and $v_3$ arising from the initial geometric asymmetry in the initial conditions and its associated event-by-event fluctuations. Within the same transport framework, for the sake of consistency, we also compare the nuclear modification factor of the $p_T$ spectra of charm and beauty quarks, heavy hadrons and t…
The peculiar role of heavy-flavour observables in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is discussed. Produced in the early stage, $c$ and $b$ quarks cross the hot medium arising from the collision, interacting strongly with the latter, until they hadronize. Depending on the strength of the interaction heavy quarks may or not approach kinetic equilibrium with the plasma, tending in the first case to follow the collective flow of the expanding fireball. The presence of a hot deconfined medium may also affect heavy-quark hadronization, being possible for them to recombine with the surrounding light …
We introduce new Lorentz-symmetry violating kinematics for a four-fermion interaction model, where dynamical mass generation is allowed, irrespectively of the strength of the coupling. In addition, these kinematics lead to a quasi-relativistic dispersion relation, in the sense that it is relativistic in both the infrared and the ultraviolet, but not in an intermediate regime, characterized by the mass $M$. For two fermions, we show that a flavour-mixing mass matrix is generated dynamically, and the Lorentz symmetric limit $M\to\infty$ leads to two free relativistic fermions, with flavour oscil…
Before wondering about the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), one has to take into account various cold (normal) nuclear matter effects, that can be probed through p+A like collisions. This article aims at reviewing the current results (and understanding) of these effects on heavy quarks and quarkonia production.
We present calculations of the chemical freeze-out temperature (T_ch) based on particle yields from STAR and ALICE measured at collision energies ranging from sqrt{s_{NN}} = 11.5 GeV to 5.02 TeV. Employing the Grand Canonical Ensemble approach using the Thermal-FIST Hadron Resonance Gas model package, we show evidence for a flavour-dependent chemical freeze-out in the crossover region of the QCD phase diagram. At a vanishing baryochemical potential, we calculate light and strange flavour freeze-out temperatures T_L = 150.2 +- 2.6 MeV and T_S = 165.1 +- 2.7 MeV, respectively.
Nuclear structure functions and cross-sections for heavy flavour production in lepton-nucleus collisions are investigated in the low $x$ region accessible now or in the near future. The scattering on a heavy nucleus is described by the sum of fan diagrams of BFKL pomerons, which is exact in the high-colour limit. The initial condition for the evolution at $x=0.01$ is taken from a saturation model, which reproduces the experimental data on the proton. The $A$ dependence of the structure functions is well described by a power factor $A^α$, with $α$ reaching values as low as 1/2 at extremely low …
The presence of thermal gluons reduces the stimulated gluon emission off a heavy quark propagating in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) while absorption causes reduction of the radiative energy loss. On the other hand, the chromo-electromagnetic field fluctuations present in the QGP lead to collisional energy gain of the heavy quark. The net effect of the thermal gluon absorption and field fluctuations is a reduction of the total energy loss of the heavy quark, prominent at the lower momenta. We consider both kind of the energy gains along with the usual losses, and compute the nuclear modification…
The nuclear aspects of flavour changing neutral current (FCNC) processes, predicted by various new-physics models to occur in the presence of nuclei, are examined by computing the relevant nuclear matrix elements within the context of the quasi-particle RPA using realistic strong two-body forces. One of our aims is to explore the role of the non-standard interactions (NSI) in the leptonic sector and specifically: (i) in lepton flavour violating (LFV) processes involving the neutral particles $ν_\ell$ and $\tildeν_\ell$, $\ell = e,μ,τ$ and (ii) in charged lepton flavour violating (cLFV) process…
The chromo-electromagnetic field is produced due to the motion of partons in a quark-gluon plasma created by relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The fluctuations in the produced chromo-electromagnetic field are important, since they cause heavy quarks to gain energy in the low velocity limit. We study the effect of such fluctuations on heavy quark diffusion in quark-gluon plasma within the framework of Langevin dynamics under the background matter described by the ($3+1$)-dimensional relativistic viscous hydrodynamics. Theoretical calculations of the nuclear modification factor ($R_{AA}$) of he…
A novel nuclear effect on the flavour asymmetry of anti-quarks in the nucleon bound in a nucleus is discussed in terms of the meson cloud model and the Pauli exclusion principle. It is expected that the flavour asymmetry is enhanced in a nucleus.
The propagation of the heavy quarks produced in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC is studied within the framework of Langevin dynamics in the background of an expanding deconfined medium described by ideal and viscous hydrodynamics. The transport coefficients entering into the relativistic Langevin equation are evaluated by matching the hard-thermal-loop result for soft collisions with a perturbative QCD calculation for hard scatterings. The heavy-quark spectra thus obtained are employed to compute the differential cross sections, the nuclear modification factors R_AA and…
Determination of the nuclear parton distributions within the framework of perturbative QCD, the DGLAP equations in particular, is discussed. Scale and flavour dependent nuclear effects in the parton distributions are compared with the scale and flavour independent parametrizations of HIJING and of the Hard Probe Collaboration. A comparison with the data from deep inelastic lepton-nucleus scattering and the Drell-Yan process in proton-nucleus collisions is shown.
Anisotropies of hadronic distribution in nuclear collisions are used for determination of properties of the nuclear matter. At the LHC it is important to account for the contribution to the flow due to momentum transferred from hard partons to the quark-gluon plasma.
Replicated theoretical attempts of relativistic approaches to the pion self-energy in nuclear matter yield unphysical pion spectra. We demonstrate the crucial dependence of the calculated pion spectra on the correct relativistic accounting for the short-range correlation effects on the pion self-energy in the medium. To do this, we simulate the short-range interactions by phenomenological contact terms in the relativistic Lagrangian density, and derive the pion self-energy by carefully taking into account the relativistic kinematics. The obtained spectrum for the pion-like excitations in cold …
We consider the production of lepton pairs with intermediate invariant masses, in relativistic nuclear collisions. Thermal sources are briefly discussed, as well as a newer production mechanism which involves jet-plasma interactions. Estimates for high p_T lepton pairs are provided.
Charged-current cross sections are calculated for quasielastic neutrino and antineutrino scattering using a relativistic meson-nucleon model. We examine how nuclear-structure effects, such as relativistic random-phase-approximation (RPA) corrections and momentum-dependent nucleon self-energies, influence the extraction of the axial form factor of the nucleon. RPA corrections are important only at low-momentum transfers. In contrast, the momentum dependence of the relativistic self-energies changes appreciably the value of the axial-mass parameter, $M_A$, extracted from dipole fits to the axial…
Within the context of relativistic nuclear collisions aimed at exploring hot and baryon-dense matter, we investigate how the general features of the expansion dynamics, as well as a number of specific observables, depend on the equation of state used in dynamical simulations of the non-equilibrium confinement phase transition.
The search for specific signals in ultra-relativistic heavy-light ion collisions addressing intrinsic geometric features of nuclei may open a new window to low energy nuclear structure. We discuss specifically the phenomenon of α-clustering in $^{12}$C when colliding with $^{208}$Pb at almost the speed of light.
We present a simple calculation of the nucleon self-energy in nuclear matter at finite temperature in a relativistic framework, using the real time thermal field theory. The imaginary parts of one-loop graphs are identified with discontinuities across the unitary and the Landau cuts. We find that in general both the cuts contribute significantly to the spectral function in the region of (virtual) nucleon mass usually considered, even though the unitary cut is ignored in the literature. Also our relativistic spectral function differs from the one in non-relativistic approximation, used in some …
The quark-meson coupling (QMC) model for nuclear matter, which describes nuclear matter as non-overlapping MIT bags bound by the self-consistent exchange of scalar and vector mesons is modified by the introduction of a density dependent bag constant. The density dependence of the bag constant is related to that of the in-medium effective nucleon mass through a scaling ansatz suggested by partial chiral symmetry restoration in nuclear matter. This modification overcomes drawbacks of the QMC model and leads to the recovery of the essential features of relativistic nuclear phenomenology. This sug…
There is a long-standing problem on the linearly energy-weighted sum of the excitation strengths in the relativistic field theory and nuclear models: The sum value should be positively definite, while its naive calculation using the current commutator or the double commutator of the excitation operator with Dirac Hamiltonian yields the value to vanish. This paradoxical contradiction is solved in an analytic way.
We present a short overview of recent progress in the theory of jet quenching in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions, including phenomenological studies of jet quenching at RHIC and the LHC, development in NLO perburbative QCD calculation of jet broadening and energy loss, full jet evolution and modification, medium response to jet transport, and lattice QCD and AdS/CFT studies of jet quenching.
A short overview is presented for the recent progress in the theory of heavy flavor transport in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions, including a summary of different transport models, their phenomenological results of heavy meson quenching and flow at RHIC and LHC, a possible solution to the $R_\mathrm{AA}$ vs. $v_2$ puzzle and predictions for heavy flavor observables beyond the current measurements.
We report on EPPS16 - the first analysis of NLO nuclear PDFs where LHC p-Pb data (Z, W, dijets) have been directly used as a constraint. In comparison to our previous fit EPS09, also data from neutrino-nucleus deeply-inelastic scattering and pion-nucleus Drell-Yan process are now included. Much of the theory framework has also been updated from EPS09, including a consistent treatment of heavy quarks in deeply-inelastic scattering. However, the most notable change is that we no longer assume flavour-blind nuclear modifications for valence and sea quarks. This significantly reduces the theoretic…
Predictions for heavy-flavour production in relativistic heavy-ion experiments provided by the POWLANG transport setup, including now also an in-medium hadronization model, are displayed, After showing some representative findings for the Au-Au and Pb-Pb cases, a special focus will be devoted to the results obtained in the small systems formed in proton(deuteron)-nucleus collisions, where recent experimental data suggest the possible formation of a medium featuring a collective behaviour.
The experimental sensitivity to $μ\to e$ conversion on nuclei is set to improve by four orders of magnitude in coming years. However, various operator coefficients add coherently in the amplitude for $μ\to e$ conversion, weighted by nucleus-dependent functions, and therefore in the event of a detection, identifying the relevant new physics scenarios could be difficult. Using a representation of the nuclear targets as vectors in coefficient space, whose components are the weighting functions, we quantify the expectation that different nuclear targets could give different constraints.We show tha…
We introduce a global analysis of collinearly factorized nuclear parton distribution functions (PDFs) including, for the first time, data constraints from LHC proton-lead collisions. In comparison to our previous analysis, EPS09, where data only from charged-lepton-nucleus deep inelastic scattering (DIS), Drell-Yan (DY) dilepton production in proton-nucleus collisions and inclusive pion production in deuteron-nucleus collisions were the input, we now increase the variety of data constraints to cover also neutrino-nucleus DIS and low-mass DY production in pion-nucleus collisions. The new LHC da…
The Lorentz invariant formalism for description of neutrino flavor oscillation in moving and polarized matter is developed. It is shown that the neutrino effective potential, which determines the effective mass difference between neutrinos in matter can be sufficiently changed by relativistic motion of matter. In the case of matter motion parallel to neutrino propagation, matter effects in neutrino flavor oscillations are suppressed. In the case of relativistic motion of matter in the opposite direction sufficient increase of effects of matter in neutrino oscillations is predicted. The depende…
We describe SuperIso Relic, a public program for the calculation of dark matter relic density and direct and indirect detection rates, which includes in addition the SuperIso routines for the calculation of flavour physics observables. SuperIso Relic v4 incorporates many new features, namely the possibility of multiprocessor calculation of the relic density, new cosmological models, and the implementations of the calculation of the observables related to direct and indirect detection experiments. Furthermore, the new version includes an implementation of the nuclear and astrophysical uncertain…
Parity and time invariance violating ($P,T$-odd) atomic electric dipole moments (EDM) are induced by interaction between atomic electrons and nuclear $P,T$-odd moments which are produced by $P,T$-odd nuclear forces. The nuclear EDM is screened by atomic electrons. The EDM of a non-relativistic atom with closed electron subshells is induced by the nuclear Schiff moment. For heavy relativistic atoms EDM is induced by the nuclear local dipole moments which differ by 10-50% from the Schiff moments calculated previously. We calculate the local dipole moments for ${^{199}{\rm Hg}}$ and ${^{205}{\rm …
We review direct photons in the phenomenology of nuclear collisions at relativistic energies. Direct photons carry information about the space-time evolution of nuclear collisions because the QCD medium is transparent against colorless particles. After a status summary of theoretical and experimental studies, transverse momentum spectra and azimuthal momentum anisotropies of direct photons are studied in the context of the hydrodynamic modeling of relativistic nuclear collisions with emphasis on pre-equilibrium photons. It is implied that pre-equilibrium photons can be as important as thermal …
A full (3+1)-dimensional calculation using the Lagrangian hydrodynamics is proposed for relativistic nuclear collisions. The calculation enables us to evaluate anisotropic flow of hadronic matter which appears in non-central and/or asymmetrical relativistic nuclear collisions. Applying hydrodynamical calculations to the deformed uranium collisions at AGS energy region, we discuss the nature of space-time structure and particle distributions in detail.
Traditionally, events collected at relativistic heavy-ion colliders are classified according to some centrality estimator (e.g. the number of produced charged particles) related to the initial energy density and volume of the system. In a naive picture the latter are directly related to the impact parameter of the two nuclei, which sets also the initial eccentricity of the system: zero in the case of the most central events and getting larger for more peripheral collisions. A more realistic modelling requires to take into account event-by-event fluctuations, in particular in the nucleon positi…
The exploration of the strong-interaction matter under extreme conditions is one of the main goals of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We provide some of the main results on the novel properties of quark-gluon plasma, with particular focus given to the strong collectivity and the color opaqueness exhibited by such hot and dense matter produced in high-energy nuclear collisions at RHIC and the LHC.
Following the basic prescriptions of the Tsallis' nonextensive relativistic thermodynamics, we investigate the relevance of nonextensive statistical effects on the relativistic nuclear and subnuclear equation of state. In this framework, we study the first order phase transition from hadronic to quark-gluon plasma phase by requiring the Gibbs conditions on the global conservation of the electric and the baryon charges. The relevance of small deviations from the standard extensive statistics is investigated in the context of intermediate and high energy heavy-ion collisions.
We summarize our current understanding of the connection between the QCD phase line and the chemical freeze-out curve as deduced from thermal analyses of yields of particles produced in central collisions between relativistic nuclei.
The quark matter created in relativistic nuclear collisions is interpreted as a nearly-perfect fluid. The recent efforts to explore its finite-density properties in the beam energy scan programs motivate one to revisit the issue of the local rest frame fixing in off-equilibrium hydrodynamics. I first investigate full second-order relativistic hydrodynamics in the Landau and the Eckart frames. Then numerical hydrodynamic simulations are performed to elucidate the effect of frame choice on flow observables in relativistic nuclear collisions. The results indicate that the flow can differ in the L…
The penetrating nature of electromagnetic signals makes them suitable probes to explore the properties of the strongly-interacting medium created in relativistic nuclear collisions. We examine the effects of the initial conditions and shear relaxation time on the spectra and flow coefficients of electromagnetic probes, using an event-by-event 3+1D viscous hydrodynamic simulation (MUSIC).
This work studies collinearly factorizable nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) in perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) at next-to-leading order in the light of hadron-nucleus collision data which have not been included in nPDF analyses previously. The aim is at setting new constraints on the nuclear modifications of the gluon distribution and on the flavour separation of quark nuclear modifications. The introductory part provides an outline of the theoretical framework of QCD collinear factorization and the used statistical methods and relates the work presented here to other si…
Saturation models for particle production in relativistic nuclear collisions are discussed. In particular, I show that the predictions from the high density QCD for the qualitative shape of $dN/dy$ are very sensitive to the form of the unintegrated gluon distribution.
Extraction of ground-state nuclear deformations from ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions: Nuclear structure physics context
University of York（约克大学）；University of Warsaw（华沙大学）；Michigan State University（密歇根州立大学）；University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill（北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校）；Duke University（杜克大学）
According to recent experimental data at GSI, the rate of the number of daughter ions 140Ce58+, produced by the nuclear K-shell electron capture (EC) decay of the H-like ion 140Pr58+, is modulated in time with a period T_d = 7.06(8) sec and an amplitude a_(EC) = 0.20(2). We show that this phenomenon can be explained by neutrino-flavour mixing and derive a value for the difference of squared masses Delta m^2_(21) = m^2_2 - m^2_1 = 2.22(3)x10^(-4) eV^2.
I show that the average transverse momentum, $\langle p_t \rangle$, of the hadrons emitted in relativistic nuclear collisions can be used as a ``knob'' to control the strength of the magnetic field induced by the spectator and the participant protons over the overlap region. I thus argue that any observable sensitive to this magnetic field is nontrivially correlated with $\langle p_t \rangle$ at a given collision centrality.
We survey at the general level, and in a rather wide and historical context, some less known mathematical details of various mean free path statistics in nuclear emulsion as applied to relativistic projectile fragmentations. A number of comments are provided on Feller's paradox, ordered, censored, and truncated statistics, Erlang and Poisson observers of nuclear emulsion. All these issues are related to the statistical approaches used about a decade ago at Berkeley Bevalac for anomalons, some of which should be considered as standard methods for mean free paths' estimators of relativistic heav…
Relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions create a "fireball" of strongly interacting matter at high energy density. At very high energy this is suggested to be partonic matter, but at lower energy it should consist of yet unknown hadronic, perhaps coherent degrees of freedom. The freeze-out of this high density state to a hadron gas can tell us about properties of fireball matter.
