It is frequently supposed that quark-gluon plasma created in heavy-ion collisions undergoes free streaming at early times. We examine this issue based on the assumption that a universal attractor dominates the dynamics already at the earliest stages, which offers a way to connect the initial state with the start of the hydrodynamic expansion in an approximate but conceptually transparent fashion. We demonstrate that the centrality dependence of the measured particle multiplicities can be used to quantitatively constrain the pressure anisotropy and find that it strongly depends on the model of the initial energy deposition. As an illustration, we compare three initial state models and show that they predict rather different early-time values of the pressure anisotropy. This strongly suggests that assuming free streaming prior to hydrodynamization is not necessarily compatible with a generic initial state model and that features of the pre-hydrodynamic flow need to be matched with the model of the initial state.
In ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions, charm quark fragmentation is modified due to the melting of strings inside the high density partonic matter. D mesons produced in hadronization can further produce J/psi particles. Using a multiphase transport model, we investigate the effect on the rapidity distribution of the produced J/psi particles with two different charm quark fragmentation functions. It is shown that the J/psi rapidity distribution is sensitive to the nuclear modification of charm quark fragmentation and thus is a good indicator of the onset of string melting and the production…
We compute the centrality dependence of multiplicities of particles produced in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions at various energies and atomic numbers. The computation is carried out in perturbative QCD with saturated densities of produced gluons and by including effects of nuclear geometry. Numbers are given for Au+Au collisions at RHIC energies.
Are heavy quarks produced thermally or only by hard parton collisions? What is the probability that a produced heavy quark or antiquark is observed in a given resonance?
Electromagnetic field of a fast electric charge in nuclear matter with spatially uniform but random topological charge density is derived. A useful approximation is developed for the relativistic heavy-ion collisions.
We present a novel method for sorting events. So far, single variables like flow vector magnitude were used for sorting events. Our approach takes into account the whole azimuthal angle distribution rather than a single variable. This method allows us to determine the good measure of the event shape, providing a multiplicity-independent insight. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, the possible usage in femtoscopy, and other more exclusive experimental studies.
In this article we investigate the influence of nuclear effects in the production of gluinos in nuclear collisions at the LHC, and estimate the transverse momentum dependence of the nuclear ratios $R_{pA} = {\frac{dσ(pA)}{dy d^2 p_T}} / A {\frac{dσ(pp)}{dy d^2 p_T}}$ and $R_{AA} = {\frac{dσ(AA)}{dy d^2 p_T}} / A^2 {\frac{dσ(pp)}{dy d^2 p_T}}$. We demonstrate that depending on the magnitude of the nuclear effects, the production of gluinos could be enhanced, compared to proton-proton collisions. The study of these observables can be useful to determine the magnitude of the shadowing and antisha…
We compute the rapidity dependence of particle and transverse energy production in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions at various beam energies and atomic numbers using the perturbative QCD + saturation model. The distribution is a broad gaussian near $y=0$ but the rapid increase of particle production with the beam energy will via energy conservation strongly constrain the rapidity distribution at large $y$.
Pion and photon production cross sections are analyzed in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions at energies 20 GeV < s^1/2 < 60 GeV. We separate the proton-proton and nuclear contributions to transverse-momentum broadening and suggest a new mechanism for the nuclear enhancement in the high transverse-momentum region.
We show that by requiring positivity of the longitudinal pressure it is possible to constrain the initial conditions one can use in 2nd-order viscous hydrodynamical simulations of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We demonstrate this explicitly for 0+1 dimensional viscous hydrodynamics and discuss how the constraint extends to higher dimensions. Additionally, we present an analytic approximation to the solution of 0+1 dimensional 2nd-order viscous hydrodynamical evolution equations appropriate to describe the evolution of matter in an ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collision.
We review the physics of nuclear matter at high energy density and the experimental search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The data obtained in the first three years of the RHIC physics program provide several lines of evidence that a novel state of matter has been created in the most violent, head-on collisions of $Au$ nuclei at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV. Jet quenching and global measurements show that the initial energy density of the strongly interacting medium generated in the collision is about two orders of magnitude larger than that of cold nuclear mat…
Highly excited nuclear matter created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions possibly reaches the phase of quark deconfinement. It quickly cools down and hadronises. We explain that the process of hadronisation may likely be connected with disintegration into fragments. Observable signals of such a scenario are proposed.
To analyse ultrarelativistic nuclear interactions, usually either dynamical models like the string model are employed, or a thermal treatment based on hadrons or quarks is applied. String models encounter problems due to high string densities, thermal approaches are too simplistic considering only average distributions, ignoring fluctuations. We propose a completely new approach, providing a link between the two treatments, and avoiding their main shortcomings: based on the string model, connected regions of high energy density are identified for single events, such regions referred to as quar…
The Coulomb corrections to the cross section of $e^+e^-$ pair production in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions are calculated in the next-to-leading approximation with respect to the parameter $L=\ln γ_Aγ_B$ ($γ_{A,B}$ are the Lorentz factors of colliding nuclei). We found considerable reduction of the Coulomb corrections even for large $γ_Aγ_B$ due to the suppression of the production of $e^+e^-$ pair with the total energy of the order of a few electron masses in the rest frame of one of the nuclei. Our result explains why the deviation from the Born result were not observed in the experime…
Using the framework of wedge dynamics, we compute the effective transverse mass of a soft quark mode propagating in the expanding background of hard quarks and gluons created at the earliest time of the collision. We discover that the wedge dynamics does not require any external infrared or collinear cut-off. The effective mass is produced mainly due to the forward quark-quark scattering mediated by the longitudinal (in sense of Gauss' law) magnetic fields. Contribution of the radiation field is parametrically suppressed.
The several types of strongly intensive correlation variables are studied in nuclear collisions at LHC energy. These quantities are expected not to depend on centrality class width. They have been calculated in the dipole-based parton-string Monte Carlo model with string fusion. The centrality dependence of the mean transverse momentum correlation coefficient and strongly intensive quantity $Σ$ between multiplicity and $P_T$ have been obtained. Dynamical charge fluctuation $ν_{dyn}$ has been also calculated and compared with experimental data. It is shown that string fusion improves agreement …
A Monte Carlo generator of the final state of hadrons emitted from an ultrarelativistic nuclear collision is introduced. An important feature of the generator is a possible fragmentation of the fireball and emission of the hadrons from fragments. Phase space distribution of the fragments is based on the blast wave model extended to azimuthally non-symmetric fireballs. Parameters of the model can be tuned and this allows to generate final states from various kinds of fireballs. A facultative output in the OSCAR1999A format allows for a comprehensive analysis of phase-space distributions and/or …
At the colliders RHIC and LHC, nuclei at the ultrarelativistic energies of $100$ GeV/A and $2.7$ TeV/A will be smashed together with the hope of creating an elusive and short-lived state of matter called the quark gluon plasma. The initial conditions which determine the dynamical evolution of the quark gluon matter formed in the central region after the collision depend crucially on the small $x$ component of the nuclear wavefunction before the collision. In this comment, we discuss recent work which argues that, for large nuclei, weak coupling techniques in QCD can be used to calculate the di…
We derive expressions for various correlators of the gauge field and find the propagators in Hamiltonian dynamics which employs a new gauge $A^τ=0$. This gauge is a part of the wedge form of relativistic dynamics suggested earlier as a tool for the study of quantum dynamics in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. We prove that the gauge is completely fixed. The gauge field is quantized and the field of radiation and the longitudinal fields are unambiguously separated. The new gauge puts the quark and gluon fields of the colliding hadrons in one Hilbert space and thus allows one to avoid fa…
We present a phenomenological model for the initial conditions needed in a one-fluid hydrodynamical description of ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions at CERN--SPS. The basic ingredient is the parametrization of the baryon stopping, i.e. the rapidity distribution, as a function of the thickness of the nuclei. We apply the model to S + S and Pb + Pb collisions and find after hydrodynamical evolution reasonable agreement with the data.
We explore the correspondence between classical gluon radiation and quantum radiation in a coherent state for gluons produced in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions. The expectation value of the invariant momentum distribution of gluons in the coherent state is found to agree with the gluon number distribution obtained classically from the solution of the Yang-Mills equations. A criterion for the applicability of the coherent state formalism to the problem of radiation in ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions is discussed. This criterion is found to be fulfilled for midrapidity gluons …
A model for description of the s_{NN}^{1/2} dependence of K+/pi+ ratio at the CERN SPS and upper AGS energies is proposed. It uses hadronic degrees of freedom and the amount of produced strangeness is mainly controlled by the total lifetime of the fireball. Decreasing lifetime with increasing collision energy is conjectured.
We compute how the initial energy density and produced gluon, quark and antiquark numbers scale with atomic number and beam energy in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. The computation is based on the argument that the effect of all momentum scales can be estimated by performing the computation at one transverse momentum scale, the saturation momentum. The initial numbers are converted to final ones by assuming kinetic thermalisation and adiabatic expansion. The main emphasis of the study is at LHC and RHIC energies but it is observed that even at SPS energies this approach leads to resul…
The number of hydrogen-like atoms produced when heavy nuclei collide is estimated for central collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider using the sudden approximation of Baym et al. As first suggested by Schwartz, a simultaneous measurement of the hydrogen and hadron spectra will allow an inference of the electron or muon spectra at low momentum where a direct experimental measurement is not feasible.
We describe a model of jet quenching in nuclear collisions at RHIC energies. In the model, jet quenching is to be caused by the interruption of jet formation by nucleons arriving at the position of jet formation in a time shorter than the jet formation time. Our mechanism predicts suppression of high-pt spectra also in d+Au reactions.
We study the disintegration of nuclei by strong electromagnetic fields induced by ultrarelativistic heavy ions. The proposed multi-step model includes 1) the absorption of a virtual photon by a nucleus, 2) intranuclear cascades of produced hadrons and 3) statistical decay of the excited residual nucleus. The combined model describes well existing data on projectile fragmentation at energy 200 GeV per nucleon. Electromagnetic multifragmentation of nuclei is predicted to be an important reaction mechanism at RHIC and LHC energies.
We extend previous work on high energy nuclear collisions in the Color Glass Condensate model to study collisions of finite ultrarelativistic nuclei. The changes implemented include a) imposition of color neutrality at the nucleon level and b) realistic nuclear matter distributions of finite nuclei. The saturation scale characterizing the fields of color charge is explicitly position dependent, $Λ_s=Λ_s(x_T)$. We compute gluon distributions both before and after the collisions. The gluon distribution in the nuclear wavefunction before the collision is significantly suppressed below the saturat…
Collisions between heavy atomic nuclei at ultra-relativistic energies are carried out at particle colliders to produce the quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter where quarks and gluons are not confined into hadrons, and colour degrees of freedom are liberated. This state is thought to be produced as a transient phenomenon before it fragments into thousands of particles that reach the particle detectors. Despite two decades of investigations, one of the big open questions is to obtain an experimental determination of the temperature reached in a heavy-ion collision, and a simultaneous determina…
We review the progress in understanding the strange particle yields in nuclear collisions and their role in signalling quark-gluon plasma formation. We report on new insights into the formation mechanisms of strange particles during ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions and discuss interesting new details of the strangeness phase diagram. In the main part of the review we show how the measured (multi-)strange particle abundances can be used as a testing ground for chemical equilibration in nuclear collisions, and how the results of such an analysis lead to important constraints on the collisi…
We develop a far-from-equilibrium hydrodynamic model to evolve ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions in event-by-event simulations. Anisotropic hydrodynamics is designed to better handle the strong and highly anisotropic expansion during the early stages of the collision. The large gradients cause conventional second-order viscous hydrodynamic approaches to break down at early times. Anisotropic hydrodynamics evolves the large pressure anisotropies present in the quark-gluon plasma non-perturbatively, which prevents negative longitudinal pressures from developing even under extreme conditions…
In this contribution, we present some predictions for the production of D and B mesons in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies and confront them with experimental results obtained so far by the STAR, PHENIX, ALICE and CMS collaborations. We next discuss some preliminary results obtained with an improved description of the medium based on EPOS initial conditions, and its possible implications on the nuclear modification factor and on the elliptic flow of heavy quarks.
The role of minijet production as initial conditions for QGP production at $τ\sim 0.1 fm/c$ in nuclear collisions at the LHC and RHIC energies is discussed.
We investigate the space-time structure of the classical gluon field produced in an ultrarelativistic collision between color charges. The classical solution which was computed previously in a perturbative approach is shown to become unstable on account of the non-Abelian self-interaction neglected in the perturbative solution scheme. The time scale for growth of the instabilities is found to be of the order of the distance between the colliding color charges. We argue that these instabilities will eventually lead to thermalization of gluons produced in an ultrarelativistic collision between h…
I first review the early history of the ultrarelativistic heavy ion program, starting with the 1974 Bear Mountain Workshop, and the 1983 Aurora meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Science Committee, just one billion seconds ago, which laid out the initial science goals of an ultrarelativistic collider. The primary goal, to discover the properties of nuclear matter at the highest energy densities, included finding new states of matter -- the quark-gluon plasma primarily -- and to use collisions to open a new window on related problems of matter in cosmology, neutron stars, supernovae, and elsewhere. To…
The effect of in-medium vector and axial-vector meson masses on photon production is studied. We assume that the effective mass of a vector meson in hot nuclear matter decreases according to a universal scaling law, while that of an axial-vector meson is given by Weinberg's mass formula. We find that the thermal production rate of photons increases with reduced masses, and is enhanced by an order of magnitude at T=160 MeV with $m_ρ=300$ MeV. Assuming a hydrodynamic evolution, we estimate the effect of the reduced masses on photon production in nucleus-nucleus collisions. The result is compared…
We investigate with a transport approach the cold and hot nuclear matter effects on the charmonium transverse momentum distributions in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The newly defined nuclear modification factor $r_{AA}=\langle p_{T}^2\rangle_{AA}/\langle p_{T}^2\rangle_{pp}$ and elliptic flow $v_2$ for $J/ψ$ are sensitive to the nature of the hot medium and the thermalization of heavy quarks. From SPS through RHIC to LHC colliding energies, we observe dramatic changes in the centrality dependence of $r_{AA}$. We find that at LHC energy, the finally observed charmonia are dominated by the…
We suggest that the ultrarelativistic collisions of heavy ions provide the simplest situation for the study of strong interactions which can be understood from first principles and without any model assumptions about the microscopic structure of the colliding nuclei. We argue that the boost-invariant geometry of the collision, and the existence of hard partons in the final states, both supported by the data, make a sufficient basis for the quantum theory of the phenomenon. We conclude that the quantum nature of the entire process is defined by its global geometry, which is enforced by a macros…
We compute in next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD the amount of transverse energy produced into a rapidity region $ΔY$ of a nuclear collision from partons created in the few-GeV subcollisions. The NLO formulation assumes collinear factorization and is based on the subtraction method. We first study the results as a function of the minimum transverse momentum scale and define and determine the associated $K$-factors. The dependence of the NLO results on the scale choice and on the size of $ΔY$ is also studied. The calculations are performed for GRV94 and CTEQ5 sets of parton distributi…
We study the dynamics of quantum fluctuations which take place at the earliest stage of high-energy processes and the conditions under which the data from e-p deep-inelastic scattering may serve as an input for computing the initial data for heavy-ion collisions at high energies. Our method is essentially based on the space-time picture of these seemingly different phenomena. We prove that the ultra-violet renormalization of the virtual loops does not bring any scale into the problem. The scale appears only in connection with the collinear cut-off in the evolution equations and is defined by t…
Particle production in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions depends on the details of the nucleon density distributions in the colliding nuclei. We demonstrate that the charged hadron multiplicity distributions in isobaric collisions at ultrarelativistic energies provide a novel approach to determine the poorly known neutron density distributions and thus the neutron skin thickness in finite nuclei, which can in turn put stringent constraints on the nuclear symmetry energy.
Recent results on minijet production in nuclear collisions at the RHIC and LHC energies are reviewed. Initial conditions of the QGP at $τ=0.1$ fm$/c$, especially parton chemistry, thermalization and net baryon number-to-entropy ratio are discussed. Also, contribution of minijets from a hard BFKL-pomeron ladder will be estimated.
We use a boost-invariant one-dimensional (cylindrically symmetric) fluid dynamics code to calculate $e^+e^-$ production from $ρ^0$ and $ω$ decay in the central rapidity region of a central S+Au collision at $\sqrt{s}=20$ GeV/nucleon. We use equations of state with a first-order phase transition between a massless pion gas and quark gluon plasma, with transition temperatures in the range $150-200$ MeV. The production cross section at the $ρ$ mass loosely constrains the transition and freeze-out temperatures, and we find that the $m_T$ spectrum is a good thermometer for sufficiently high $T_c$.
Dynamical models based on relativistic fluid dynamics provide a powerful tool to extract the properties of the strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma (QGP) produced by ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions. The largest source of uncertainty in these model-to-data extractions is the choice of theoretical initial conditions (ICs) used to model the distribution of energy or entropy at the hydrodynamic starting time. Descriptions of the ICs are generally improved through iterative cycles of testing and refinement. Individual models are compared to experimental data; the worst models are discarded and …
We review the production of lepton pairs during high energy nuclear collisions. We highlight the information being carried out of the hot and dense strongly interacting medium. We describe the phenomenon of scalar-vector mixing that can take place in a dense medium and suggest possible measurable signatures of this effect in high energy heavy ion collisions.
Using a multiphase transport model, we study the relative importance of J/psi suppression mechanisms due to plasma screening, gluon scattering, and hadron absorption in heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. We find that for collisions between heavy nuclei such as Au+Au, both plasma screening and gluon scattering are important. As a result, the effect due to absorption by hadrons becomes relatively minor. The final J/psi survival probability in these collisions is only a few percent. In the case of collisions between light nuclei such as S+S, the effect of plasma screenin…
The effect of shadowing on the early state of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is investigated along with transverse energy and hard process production, specifically Drell-Yan, $J/ψ$, and $Υ$ production. We choose several parton distributions and parameterizations of nuclear shadowing, as well as the spatial dependence of shadowing, to study the influence of shadowing on relevant observables. Results are presented for Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV and Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 5.5$ TeV.
We argue that the classical evolution of small x modes in the collision of two ultrarelativistic nuclei is described on a transverse lattice by the Kogut--Susskind Hamiltonian in 2+1-dimensions coupled to an adjoint scalar field. The initial conditions for the evolution are provided by the non--Abelian Weizsäcker--Williams fields which constitute the classical parton distributions in each of the nuclei. We outline how lattice techniques developed for real time simulations of field theories in thermal equilibrium can be used to study non--perturbatively, thermalization and classical gluon radia…
The decay width of a phi meson is reduced from its vacuum value as its mass decreases in hot hadronic matter as a result of the partial restoration of chiral symmetry. This reduction is, however, cancelled by collisional broadening through the reactions $ϕπ\to KK^*$, $ϕK\toϕK$, $ϕρ\to KK$, and $ϕϕ\to KK$. The resulting phi meson width in hot hadronic matter is found to be less than about 10 MeV for temperatures below 200 MeV. If hadronic matter has a strong first-order phase transition, this narrow phi meson with reduced mass will appear as a second peak in the dilepton spectrum in ultrarelati…
The influence of the nuclear Coulomb field on transverse spectra of $π^+$ and $π^-$ measured in $Pb+Pb$ reactions at 158 A GeV has been investigated. Pion trajectories are calculated in the field of an expanding fireball. The observed enhancement of the $π^-/π^+$ ratio at small momenta depends on the temperature and transverse expansion velocity of the source, the rapidity distribution of the net positive charge, and mainly the time of the freeze-out.
A two phase cascade is presented for the treatment of ultra-high energy ion-ion collisions at energies from 17-200 GeV. First a high energy, fast cascade is performed, in which original baryons and freed hard partons, if any, collide. This stage ignores energy loss from soft (slow) processes. In this first version no hard processes, aside from Drell-Yan production, are included. The space-time history of the hard phase is then used as input to reconstruct soft energy-loss, which occurs over a longer time scale. Soft meson production is therefore treated as coherent over groups of interacting n…
We study nuclear reactions induced by virtual photons associated with Lorentz-boosted Coulomb fields of ultrarelativistic heavy ions. Evaporation, fission and multifragmentation mechanisms are included in a new RELDIS code, which describes the deexcitation of residual nuclei formed after single and double photon absorption in peripheral heavy-ion collisions. Partial cross sections for different dissociation channels, including the multiple neutron emission ones, are calculated and compared with data when available. Rapidity and transverse momentum distributions of nucleons, nuclear fragments a…
Using FOPI data on elliptic flow in Au+Au collisions between 0.4 and 1.5A GeV we extract constraints for the equation of state (EOS) of compressed symmetric nuclear matter using the transport code IQMD by introducing an observable describing the evolution of the size of the elliptic flow as a function of rapidity. This observable is sensitive to the nuclear EOS and a robust tool to constrain the compressibility of nuclear matter up to 2 $ρ_0$.
I present the motivation for studying nuclear collisions at ultrarelativistic energies which is to map the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter under very extreme conditions. The relevant experimental efforts are overviewed and problems in connecting observables with physics of the hot and dense matter are pointed out. I review the current highlights of the experimental programme: excitation functions of various quantities from the SPS which suggest a possibility of the onset of deconfinement, and the evidence of deconfined perfect fluid at RHIC.
The nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) of gluons are known to be difficult to determine with fits of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) and Drell-Yan (DY) data alone. Therefore, the nCTEQ15 analysis of nuclear PDFs added inclusive neutral pion production data from RHIC to help in constraining the gluon. In this analysis, we present a new global analysis of nuclear PDFs based on a much larger set of single inclusive light hadron data from RHIC and the LHC. Using our new nCTEQ code (nCTEQ++) with an optimized version of INCNLO we study systematically the limitations of the theory and the…
