Heavy-ion collisions at relativistic energies probe matter at extreme conditions of temperatures and energy densities. The study of event-by-event fluctuations of experimental observables is crucial to probe the QCD phase transition, locate the critical point, and learn about the associated critical phenomena. At the critical point, all thermodynamic quantities behave anomalously. Fluctuation measurements provide access to thermodynamic response functions. We discuss the methods for obtaining the isothermal compressibility using particle multiplicity fluctuation, and specific heat using fluctuations in mean transverse momentum, temperature, and energy. Lattice QCD calculations have predicted non-monotonic behavior in the higher-order cumulants of conserved quantities at the critical point. Fluctuations in the multiplicity of charged to neutral particles have been measured to understand the formation of domains of disoriented chiral condensates. We review the recent fluctuation results as a function of collision centrality and energy from experiments at SPS, RHIC, and LHC. In addition, we propose to map the temperature fluctuations in eta-phi plane to probe local fluctuations of temperature and energy density.
The QCD phenomenology of prompt photon production from e-p to p-p/p-pbar and A-A collisions is reviewed. The use of prompt photons as a probe of (i) parton distribution functions (in a proton or in nuclei) as well as (ii) fragmentation functions (into photons and hadrons) and their medium-modifications is highlighted.
The Beam Energy Scan program has been undertaken at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to search for the QCD critical point. The presence of the critical point is expected to lead to non-monotonic behavior of several quantities. Here we report the result of higher moments of net-charge distributions for Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 39 GeV as measured by the STAR experiment. The STAR results are compared with results from HIJING event generator and Hadron Resonance (HRG) Models.
It is argued that, in heavy ion collisions, thermal dileptons are good probes of the transport properties of the medium created in such events, and also of its early-time dynamics, usually inaccessible to hadronic observables. In this work we show that electromagnetic azimuthal momentum anisotropies do not only display a sensitivity to the shear relaxation time and to the initial shear-stress tensor profile, but also to the temperature dependence of the shear viscosity coefficient.
The idea that the nuclear matter may posses long range topological order is supported by the theory and the lattice calculations. At high temperature this order is instrumental in producing anomalous phenomena such as the Chiral Magnetic Effect. In the cold nuclear matter it affects the gluon distribution in the nuclear wave function at low $x$. The effect of the topological order is encapsulated in the unintegrated gluon distribution functions which are proportional, at the leading order, to the square of the gluon propagator at finite topological charge density. It is argued that the Electro…
It is shown that intermittency, a self-similar correlation with respect to the size of the phase space volume, is sensitive to critical density fluctuations of baryon numbers in a system belonging to the three-dimensional (3D) Ising universality class. The relation between intermittency index and relative baryon density fluctuation is obtained. We thus suggest that measuring the intermittency in relativistic heavy-ion collisions could be used as a good probe of density fluctuations associated with the QCD critical phenomena. From recent preliminary results on neutron density fluctuations in ce…
A novel attempt has been made to probe the QCD phase boundary by using the experimental data for transverse momenta of ϕ mesons produced in nuclear collisions at AGS, SPS and RHIC energies. The data are confronted with simple thermodynamic expectations and lattice QCD results. The experimental data indicate a first-order phase transition, with a mixed phase stretching the energy density between \sim1 and 3.2 GeV/fm3 corresponding to SPS energies.
The Real Compton Scattering in ultraperipheral $pPb$ collisions at RHIC and LHC energies is investigated and predictions for the squared transverse momentum ($t$) and rapidity ($Y$) distributions are presented. The scattering amplitude is assumed to be given by the sum of the Reggeon and Pomeron contributions and the Pomeron one is described by the Color Dipole formalism taking into account the non - linear (saturation) effects in the QCD dynamics. We demonstrate that the behaviour of the cross sections at large -- $t$ and/or $Y$ is dominated by the Pomeron contribution and is strongly affecte…
Probing QCD instantons using jet correlation observables in proton-proton collisions at the LHC
The Institute of Mathematical Sciences（数学科学研究所）；Homi Bhabha National Institute（霍米·巴巴国立研究所）；Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER)（印度科学与教育研究所）
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…
Higher moments of event-by-event net-proton multiplicity distributions are applied to search for the QCD critical point in the heavy ion collisions. It has been demonstrated that higher moments as well as moment products are sensitive to the correlation length and directly connected to the thermodynamic susceptibilities computed in the Lattice QCD and Hadron Resonance Gas (HRG) model. In this paper, we will present measurements for kurtosis ($κ$), skewness ($S$) and variance ($σ^{2}$) of net-proton multiplicity distributions at the mid-rapidity ($|y|<0.5$) and $0.4<p_{T}<0.8$ GeV/$c$ for Au+Au…
Intensity interferometry originates from the field of radio astronomy on the trace of Robert Hanbury Brown and Richard Quincy Twiss. In high energy physics, the phenomena was discovered by Goldhaber, Goldhaber, Lee and Pais. In radio astronomy the method is exceeded by more modern approaches but in high energy physics, the measurements of Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) or Goldhaber-Goldhaber-Lee-Pais (GGLP) type of correlations are important tools to access the spatio-temporal properties of the matter under extreme conditions on subatomic scales. In this paper, I review recent experimental results …
The dynamic separation into phases of high and low baryon density in a heavy ion collision can enhance fluctuations of the net rapidity density of baryons compared to model expectations. We show how these fluctuations arise and how they can survive through freezeout.
We calculate the cumulants and correlation functions of net-kaon multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 7.7$ GeV using a multiphase transport model (AMPT) with both a new coalescence mechanism and all charge conservation laws. The AMPT model can qualitatively describe the centrality dependences of the net-kaon cumulants and cumulant ratios measured by the STAR experiment. By focusing on the stage evolution of the cumulants, cumulant ratios, and correlation functions, we reveal several key effects on the fluctuations and correlations of strangeness during the dynamic…
A summary of discussions on selected topics related to QCD phase diagram, phase transition, critical point, fluctuation and correlations at the Quark Matter 2009 conference are presented.
The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Darmstadt will provide unique research opportunities for the investigation of fundamental open questions related to nuclear physics and astrophysics, including the exploration of QCD matter under extreme conditions, which governs the structure and dynamics of cosmic objects and phenomena like neutron stars, supernova explosions, and neutron star mergers. The physics program of the Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment is devoted to the production and investigation of dense nuclear matter, with a focus on the high-density equation-of-…
The connection between initial-state geometry and anisotropic flow can be quantified through a well-established mapping between $p_T$-integrated flow harmonics and cumulants of the initial transverse energy distribution. In this paper we successfully extend this mapping to also include $p_T$-differential flow. In doing so, we find that subleading principal components of anisotropic flow can reveal previously unobserved details of the hydrodynamic response, in both the linear and the nonlinear regimes. Most importantly, we show that they provide novel information on the small-scale structures p…
The determination of the color force in a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is a key objective in the investigation of strong-interaction matter. Open and hidden heavy-flavor observables in heavy-ion collisions (HICs) are believed to provide insights into this problem by comparing calculations of heavy-quark (HQ) and quarkonium transport with pertinent experimental data. In this work, we utilize the $T$-matrix formalism to compute charm-quark transport coefficients for various input potentials previously extracted from simultaneous fits to lattice-QCD data for HQ free energies, quarkonium correlators a…
Based on the extended hadronic transport model of relativistic heavy-ion collisions, the incompressibility of dense hadronic matter created in relativistic Au+Au heavy-ion collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 3$ GeV is studied. By comparing experimental proton directed flow, productions of strange hadrons $ϕ$, $K^{-}$ as well as their ratio $ϕ/K^{-}$, proton high-order cumulants to the model calculations, a large incompressibility of dense hadronic matter is obtained from nucleon observabels while a rather small incompressibility is needed to fit the data of strange hadrons. This may indicate hadron…
We present the measurements of strange hadron elliptic flow at mid-rapidity in Au + Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 7.7 - 200 GeV using the STAR detector in the years 2010 and 2011. The transverse momentum and collision centrality dependence of elliptic flow is presented. At the intermediate transverse momentum $Ω$ baryon and $ϕ$-meson show baryon-meson separation effect similar to proton and pion for minimum-bias Au+Au collision at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ =200 GeV. This indicates formation of collective flow at the early partonic phase. The separation between baryons and mesons at intermediate tra…
Probing the nature of the QCD phase transition with higher-order net-proton number fluctuation and local parton density fluctuation measurements at RHIC-STAR
A review is given on recent experimental and theoretical/phenomenological developments regarding the phase structure of the strongly interacting matter. Specifically, evolution with the collision energy of net-proton number fluctuations as measured by several experiments are presented and their implications for the QCD phase diagram are outlined. In addition, theoretical calculations on correlations between conserved charges are presented and prospects for their experimental explorations are addressed.
Enhanced fluctuations and correlations have been observed in the phase transitions of many systems. Their appearance at the predicted QCD phase transition (especially near the expected critical point) may provide insight into the nature of the phase transition. Recent results from the QCD Critical Point Search at RHIC will be presented, with a focus on particle ratio ($K/π$, $p/π$, and $K/p$) fluctuations and their comparison to previous measurements and theoretical predictions.
The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Darmstadt is designed to investigate the properties of high-density QCD matter with multi-differential measurements of hadrons and leptons, including rare probes like multi-strange anti-hyperons and charmed particles. The research program covers the study of the high-density equation-of-state of nuclear matter, and the exploration of the QCD phase diagram at large baryon-chemical potentials, including the search for quark matter and the critical endpoint of a hypothetical 1st order …
Dynamical fluctuations in global conserved quantities such as baryon number, strangeness, or charge may be observed near a QCD critical point. Results from new measurements of dynamical $K/π$ and $p/π$ ratio fluctuations are presented. The commencing of a QCD critical point search at RHIC has extended the reach of possible measurements of dynamical $K/π$ and $p/π$ ratio fluctuations from Au+Au collisions to lower energies. The STAR experiment has performed a comprehensive study of the energy dependence of these dynamical fluctuations in Au+Au collisions at the energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 7.7, 1…
