Radial flow can be directly extracted from the azimuthal distribution of mean transverse rapidity. We apply the event-plane method and the two-particle correlation method to estimate the anisotropic Fourier coefficient of the azimuthal distribution of mean transverse rapidity. Using the event sample generated by a multiphase transport model with string melting, we show that both methods are effective. For the two-particle correlation method to be reliable, the mean number of particles in an azimuthal bin must be above a certain threshold. Using these two methods, anisotropic radial flow can be estimated in a model-independent way in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.
We suggest the azimuthal distribution of mean transverse (radial) rapidity of the final state particles as a more direct measure of the transverse motion of the source than the standard azimuthal multiplicity distribution. Using a sample generated by the AMPT model with string melting, we demonstrate that the azimuthal amplitude of the suggested distribution characterizes the anisotropic radial flow, and coincides with the parameter of anisotropic radial rapidity extracted from a generalized blast-wave parametrization.
We give a short review about the hydrodynamic model and its application to the elliptic flow phenomena and the pion interferometry in relativistic heavy ion collisions.
The study of relativistic heavy-ion collisions is an important part of the LHC research programme at CERN. This emerging field of research focuses on the study of matter under extreme conditions of temperature, density, and pressure. Here we present an introduction to the general aspects of relativistic heavy-ion physics. Afterwards we give an overview of the accelerator facility at CERN and then a quick look at the ALICE project as a dedicated experiment for heavy-ion collisions.
Collective flow, its anisotropies and its event-to-event fluctuations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, and the extraction of the specific shear viscosity of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) from collective flow data collected in heavy-ion collision experiments at RHIC and LHC are reviewed. Specific emphasis is placed on the similarities between the Big Bang of our universe and the Little Bangs created in heavy-ion collisions.
We describe the current status of the heavy ion research program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The new suite of experiments and the collider energies have opened up new probes of the medium created in the collisions. Our review focuses on the experimental discoveries to date at RHIC and their interpretation in the light of our present theoretical understanding of the dynamics of relativistic heavy ion collisions and of the structure of strongly interacting matter at high energy density.
We review the progress achieved in extracting the properties of hot and dense matter from relativistic heavy ion collisions at the relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the large hadron collider (LHC) at CERN. We focus on bulk properties of the medium, in particular the evidence for thermalization, aspects of the equation of state, transport properties, as well as fluctuations and correlations. We also discuss the in-medium properties of hadrons with light and heavy quarks, and measurements of dileptons and quarkonia. This review is dedicated to the memor…
The possibility of quantum entanglement leading to a seemingly thermal distribution of the initial partonic state that maps to the final hadronic state in the evolution of the deconfined phase generated in relativistic heavy ion collisions is discussed in the context of early thermalization and final state particle distributions obtained in experiments at RHIC and the LHC.
Azimuthal distributions of radial (transverse) momentum, mean radial momentum, and mean radial velocity of final state particles are suggested for relativistic heavy ion collisions. Using transport model AMPT with string melting, these distributions for Au + Au collisions at 200 GeV are presented and studied. It is demonstrated that the distribution of total radial momentum is more sensitive to the anisotropic expansion, as the anisotropies of final state particles and their associated transverse momentums are both counted in the measure. The mean radial velocity distribution is compared with …
The identification of pseudospin symmetry as a relativistic symmetry of the Dirac Hamiltonian is used to explain the structure of radial nodes occurring in pseudospin doublets and to illuminate the special status of nodeless intruder states in nuclei.
It was proposed that the electric fields may lead to chiral separation in QGP, which is called the chiral electric separation effect. The strong electromagnetic field and the QCD vacuum can both completely be produced in the off-central nuclear-nuclear collision. We used the Wood-Saxon nucleon distribution to calculate the electric field distributions of the off-central collisions. The chiral electro field spatial distribution at Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energy regions are systematically studied in this paper. Compared with magnetic field spatial d…
Using an isospin- and momentum-dependent transport model we study the emission of free nucleons and the nuclear radial flow in central heavy-ion collisions induced by high energy radioactive beams. The midrapidity neutron/proton ratio and its transverse momentum dependence are found very sensitive to the high density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy. The nuclear radial flow, however, depends only weakly on the symmetry energy.
By the sample generated by the AMPT with string melting model, we compare the azimuthal distributions of multiplicity, total transverse rapidity, and mean transverse rapidity. It is demonstrated that the azimuthal distribution of mean transverse rapidity is a good probe of the radial kinetic expansion. The anisotropic part of the distribution characterizes the anisotropic nature of the radial expansion, and isotropic part is combinations of thermal motion and isotropic radial expansion.
Kinetic and hydrodynamic models describing early stages of relativistic heavy-ion collisions are discussed. We emphasise the role of the shear-bulk coupling for the correct determination of the time dependence of the bulk viscous pressure.
We outline the opportunities for ultra-relativistic heavy-ion physics which are offered by a next generation and multi-purpose fixed-target experiment exploiting the proton and ion LHC beams extracted by a bent crystal.
Some ideas/concepts in relativistic heavy ion collisions are discussed. To a large extent, the discussions are non-comprehensive and non-rigorous. It is intended for fresh graduate students of Homi Bhabha National Institute, Kolkata Centre, who are intending to pursue career in theoretical /experimental high energy nuclear physics. Comments and criticisms will be appreciated.
Shannon information entropy provides an effective tool to study the evolution process in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The time evolution process of thermodynamic entropy $S_{\rm thermal}$, multiple entropy $S_{\rm mul}$, and configuration entropy $S_{\rm conf}$ at RHIC is studied using the AMPT model to generate central Au-Au collisions. By superimposing the three kinds of information entropy, we can get a more complete information entropy of the system to describe the physical information of the relativistic heavy ion collision. The results show that the four stages of the time evolutio…
This article summarizes our present knowledge about nuclear matter at the highest energy densities and its formation in relativistic heavy ion collisions. We review what is known about the structure and properties of the quark-gluon plasma and survey the observables that are used to glean information about it from experimental data.
We study the spectrum of the bremsstrahlung photons coming from the electrons and positrons, which are produced in the strong electromagnetic fields present in peripheral relativistic heavy ion collisions. We compare different approaches, making use of the exact pair production cross section in heavy ion collisions as well as the double equivalent photon approximation.
At the very first stage of an ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collision new particles are produced in individual nucleon-nucleon collisions. In the transverse plane, all particles from a single $NN$ collision are initially located at the same position. The subsequent transverse radial expansion of the system creates strong position-momentum correlations and leads to characteristic rapidity, transverse momentum, and azimuthal correlations among the produced particles.
We present a first calculation of the dilepton yield and elliptic flow done with 3+1D viscous hydrodynamical simulations of relativistic heavy ion collisions at the top RHIC energy. A comparison with recent experimental data from the STAR collaboration is made.
Various aspects of the current status of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions are reviewed. Perspectives of heavy ion physics in the future are given as well.
In this article, we briefly review recent progress on hydrodynamic modeling and its implementations to relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and the LHC. The related topics include: 1) initial state fluctuations, final state correlations and event-by-event hydrodynamics, 2) extracting the QGP shear viscosity from flow data, 3) flow and hydrodynamics in 5.02 A TeV p+Pb collisions.
A brief introduction to the statistical hadronization approach to particle production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is given. In the context of fluid dynamics modeling various aspects of hadron emission at the freeze-out are discussed. Practical applications of the presented concepts are presented within the THERMINATOR Monte-Carlo hadron generator.
In this talk, I discuss some recent results obtained in Heavy Ion Collisions and what they tell us -- or what questions they raise -- about the physics of the system of quarks and gluons formed in these collisions.
We show that non-conventional statistical effects (due to the presence of long range forces, memory effects, correlations and fluctuations) can be very relevant in the interpretation of the experimental observables in relativistic heavy-ions collisions. Transverse mass spectrum, transverse momentum fluctuations and rapidity spectra are analysed in the framework of the non-extensive statistical mechanics.
It has been shown that the thermal photon and the lepton pair spectra can be used to estimate the radial velocity of different phases of the matter formed in nuclear collisions at ultra-relativistic energies. We observe a non-monotonic variation of the flow velocity with invariant mass of the lepton pair which is indicative of two different sources of thermal dilepton sources at early and late stage of the dynamically evolving system. We also show that the study of radial velocity through electromagnetic probes may shed light on the nature of the phase transition from hadrons to QGP.
Using the Mott exact cross section for moderate relativistic energies, we calculated the corrections to the first-order Born higher moments of the energy-loss distribution of charged particles in a wide range of the particle charge numbers.
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 discuss some open problems in hydrodynamical approach to the relativistic heavy ion collisions. In particular, we propose a new, very simple alternative approach to the relativistic dissipative hydrodynamics of Israel and Stewart.
We review some of the recent progress in our understanding of the physics of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions due to applications of AdS/CFT correspondence.
An introductory overview of electromagnetic probes in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions is provided. Experimental evidence supporting the production of thermal photons and dileptons in heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are reviewed. Thermal electromagnetic emission evaluated from hydrodynamical models of collisions is discussed.
The work distribution of an expanding extreme relativistic gas is shown to be a gamma distribution with a different shape parameter as compared with its non-relativistic counterpart. This implies that the shape of the transverse energy distribution in relativistic heavy ion collisions depends on the particle contents during the evolution of the hot and dense matter. Therefore, transverse energy fluctuations provide additional insights into the Quark-Gluon Plasma produced in these collisions.
Simulations of the viscous hydrodynamic model for relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies are presented. Results for spectra, femtoscopy radii, and transverse momentum fluctuations are favorably compared to the experimental data. Effects of the local charge conservation on correlation observables are also studied.
We review the theoretical framework for the calculation of particle polarization in relativistic heavy ion collisions within the hydrodynamical model. The covariant decomposition of the mean spin vector is presented and open theoretical issues addressed.
Relativistic hydrodynamics is essential to our current understanding of nucleus-nucleus collisions at ultrarelativistic energies (current experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, forthcoming experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider). This is an introduction to relativistic hydrodynamics for graduate students. It includes a detailed derivation of the equations, and a description of the hydrodynamical evolution of a heavy-ion collisions. Some knowledge of thermodynamics and special relativity is assumed.
We show in detailed numerical solutions of the nonlinear Fokker-Planck equation (FPE) which has been associated with nonextensive q-statistics that the available data on rapidity distributions for stopping in relativistic heavy-ion collisions cannot be reproduced with any permitted value of the nonextensivity parameter (1 < q < 1.5). This casts doubt on the nonextensivity concept that is widely used in relativistic heavy-ion physics.
The inversion-asymmetry of the emission source in relativistic heavy ion collision under the Bertsch-Pratt convention is discussed and explicitly exhibited by a Monte Carlo model. The Gaussian source function popularly used in the HBT analysis of relativistic heavy ion collisions is invalid in this case. An inversion-asymmetric source function is suggested. A method for extracting the inversion-asymmetry degree of the source together with the source size from experimental data is proposed.
Heavy ions at high velocities provide very strong electromagnetic fields for a very short time. The main characteristics of ultraperipheral relativistic heavy ion collisions are reviewed, characteristic parameters are identified. The main interest in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions at relativistic ion colliders like the LHC is the interactions of very high energy (equivalent) photons with the countermoving (equivalent) photons and hadrons (protons/ions). The physics of these interactions is quite different from and complementary to the physics of the strong fields achieved with current an…
The current status of the application of hydrodynamics to ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is reviewed. We elaborate on the arguments for strong transverse flow and rapid thermalization and discuss future applications and trends in hydrodynamics.
The possibilities of unlike particle correlations for a study of particle delays and spatial shifts in relativistic heavy ion collisions are demonstrated. This report represents the unpublished Ref. [4] in the paper by S. Voloshin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 79} (1977) 4766; the report abstract was submitted to the conference Quark Matter'97.
We calculate production of electron- and muon-pairs by the bremsstrahlung process in hadron collisions and compare it with the dominant two-photon process. Results for the total cross section are given for proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions at energies of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
It is shown that the processes of electron(positron) scattering and $e^+e^-$ pair production in the Coulomb fields of two relativistic ions, can be expressed through the amplitudes of lepton scattering off the ion Coulomb field via Watson expansion. We obtained the compact expressions for these amplitudes valid in the high energy limit and discuss the crossing symmetry relations among the considered processes.
The matter created in relativistic heavy ion collisions is fairly well described by ideal hydrodynamics, and somewhat better described by viscous hydrodynamics. To this point, most viscous calculations have been two-dimensional, based on an assumption of Bjorken boost invariance along the beam axis. Here, first results are presented for a fully three-dimensional viscous model. The model is described and tests of the numerical accuracy of the code are presented. Two- and three-dimensional runs are compared, and modest changes are observed for mid-rapidity observables at the highest RHIC (Relati…
Jet quenching is considered to be one of the signatures of the formation of quark gluon plasma. In order to investigate the jet quenching, it is necessary to detect jets produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions, determine their properties and compare those with the jets one obtains in hadron-hadron or $e^+-e^-$ collisions. In this work, we propose that calculation of flow parameters may be used to detect and characterize jets in relativistic heavy ion collisions.
An analytical equation for calculating radial dose of heavy ions in water is introduced by Awad et al. (Applied Radiation and Isotopes, 142 (2018) 135-142. It is simple alternative to Monte Carlo code and is a promising code, however, still needs refinement. Refinement was added through adjusting radial dose integration upper limit which gives the effective delta-ray range, rmax and ions penumbra radius in water as well. Radial dose distributions for 85 ions forming fifteen energy groups from 0.25 to 24 MeV/n were studied. By employing the effective delta-ray range, it was possible to get more…
We report results from a multiphase transport (AMPT) model on the rapidity and system size dependence of charged hadron anisotropic flows in nuclear collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).
Identical boson Hanbury-Brown-Twiss interferometry as applied to relativistic heavy-ion collisions is reviewed. Emphasis is placed on the use of hadronic scattering models to interpret the physical significance of experimental results. Interferometric studies with center-of-mass energies from < 1 GeV/nucleon up to 5500 GeV/nucleon are considered.
We calculate the back-to-back correlation (BBC) functions of relativistic boson-antiboson pairs in high energy heavy ion collisions using the Monte Carlo method. The relativistic effects on the BBC functions of $ϕ\,ϕ$ and $K^+K^-$ pairs are investigated. The investigations indicate that the relativistic effects on the BBC functions of $K^+K^-$ pairs with large momenta are significant, and the effect is sensitive to the particle freeze-out temperature.
Fluctuations in the statistical model of heavy ion collisions are studied. The role of statistics, relativity, constraints, decaying resonances and branching processes are investigated using this model. Also studied are thermodynamic properties related to these fluctuations with specific concerns centered around the behavior of the specific heat.
In order to determine the chemical freeze-out parameters of the hadron-emitting source in relativistic heavy ion collisions some studies in literature perform fits by using as data input a subsample of ratios calculated out of experimentally measured hadron yields instead of yields themselves. We show that this is a statistically incorrect method fit, implying a bias in the extracted parameters.
Using a multiphase transport model, we study the production of multistrange baryons from the hadronic matter formed in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The mechanism we introduce is the strangeness-exchange reactions between antikaons and hyperons. We find that these reactions contribute significantly to the production of multistrange baryons in heavy ion collisions at SPS energies, which has been found to be appreciably enhanced. We have also made predictions for multistrange baryon production in heavy ion collisions at RHIC and found a similar enhancement.
