One of the key signatures of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) is the energy loss of high momentum particles as they traverse the strongly interacting medium. The energy loss of these particles is governed by the jet transport coefficient $\hat{q}/T^3$, wherein it has been thought that there is a large jump as the system transitions between the hadron gas and Quark Gluon Plasma phases. Here we calculate $\hat{q}/T^3$ within the Hadron Resonance Gas (HRG) model with the particle list PDG16+ and find that, if one incorporates the experimental error in the hadronic calculation of $\hat{q}/T^3$ and assumes a higher pseudo-critical temperature, then a smooth transition from the hadron gas phase into the Quark Gluon Plasma phase is possible. We also find a significant enhancement in $\hat{q}/T^3$ at finite baryon chemical potential and find issues with the relationship between the shear viscosity and the jet transport coefficient within a hadron gas phase.
We discuss recent data on particle production with emphasis on the degree of thermal and chemical equilibration achieved. The data are interpreted in terms of a resonance gas model. The phase boundary constructed between the resonance gas and the quark-gluon plasma is shown to be very close to the deduced parameters characterizing the hadronic fireball at freeze-out.
The productions of real photons from quark gluon plasma and hot hadronic matter formed after the nucleus - nucleus collisions at ultra-relativistic energies are discussed. The effects of the spectral shift of the hadrons at finite temperature on the production of photons are investigated. On the basis of the present analysis it is shown that the photon spectra measured by WA98 collaboration in Pb + Pb collisions at CERN SPS energies can be explained by both QGP as well as hadronic initial states if the spectral shift of hadrons at finite temperature is taken into account. Several other works o…
The order, shape and critical point for the phase transition between the hadronic matter and quark-gluon plasma are considered in a thermodynamical consistent approach. The hadronic phase is taken as Van der Waals gas of all the known hadronic mass spectrum particles $m_H\le 2.0$ GeV as well as Hagedorn bubbles which correspond hadronic states with mass spectrum $m_H> 2.0$ GeV. The density of states for Hagedorn bubbles is derived by calculating the microcanonical ensemble for a bag of quarks and gluons with specific internal color-flavor symmetry. The mixed-grand and microcanonical ensembles …
The transport coefficient $\hat{q}$ plays a pivotal role in describing the phenomenon of jet quenching in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) produced in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions. It is challenging to compute this coefficient from first principles due to its non-perturbative nature. In this article, we present an $ab$-$initio$ formulation of $\hat{q}$ based on the standard techniques of perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) and lattice gauge theory. We construct $\hat{q}$ by considering a leading order (LO) process where a hard parton produced from the hard scattering underg…
We investigate the hadronic cooling of a quark droplet within a microscopic model. The color flux tube approach is used to describe the hadronization of the quark phase. The model reproduces experimental particle ratios equally well compared to a static thermal hadronic source. Furthermore, the dynamics of the decomposition of a quark-gluon plasma is investigated and time dependent particle ratios are found.
The formulation of the real and virtual photon production rate from strongly interacting matter is presented in the framework of finite temperature field theory. The changes in the hadronic spectral function induced by temperature are discussed within the ambit of the Walecka type model, gauged linear and non-linear sigma models, hidden local symmetry approach and QCD sum rule approach. Possibility of observing the direct thermal photon and lepton pair from quark gluon plasma has been contrasted with those from hot hadronic matter with and without medium effects for various mass variation scen…
$\hat q$ is the average squared transverse momentum transfer per unit length to a high-energy particle traversing a QCD medium such as a quark-gluon plasma. We find the (UV-regulated) value of $\hat q$ to leading order in the weak coupling limit, $\alphas(T) \ll 1$. We then use this value to generalize previous analytic results on the gluon bremsstrahlung and pair production rates for massless high-energy particles in a weakly-coupled quark-gluon plasma, at next-to-leading logarithmic order.
The hadronic spectrum obtained in the framework of a QCD-inspired schematic model, is presented. The model is the extension of a previous version, whose basic degrees of freedom are constituent quarks and antiquarks, and gluons. The interaction between quarks and gluons is a phenomenological interaction and its parameters are fixed from data. The classification of the states, in terms of quark and antiquark and gluon configurations is based on symmetry considerations, and it is independent of the chosen interaction. Following this procedure, nucleon and $Δ$ resonances are identified, as well a…
In recent decades, the spin and transverse momentum of quarks and gluons were found to play integral roles in the structure of the nucleon. Simultaneously, the onset of gluon saturation in hadrons and nuclei at high energies was predicted to result in a new state of matter dominated by classical gluon fields. Understanding both of these contributions to hadronic structure is essential for current and future collider phenomenology. In this Dissertation, we study the combined effects of transverse spin and gluon saturation using the Glauber-Gribov-Mueller / McLerran-Venugopalan model of a heavy …
The transport coefficient $\hat{q}$ is a leading coefficient that controls the modification of the hard parton traversing QGP, and hence, responsible for the suppression of the high transverse momentum (transverse to the beam direction) charged-hadrons in heavy-ion collisions. In this article, we present the first unquenched lattice QCD calculation of $\hat{q}$. The calculation is carried out using (2+1)-flavor of quarks, using the highly improved staggered quark action (HISQ) and tree-level Symanzik improved gauge action. The calculation is performed in a wide range of temperatures, ranging f…
We revisited gluon bremsstrahlung off a heavy quark in nuclear matter within higher twist formalism. In this work, we demonstrate that, in addition to transverse momentum diffusion parameter ($\hat q$), the gluon emission spectrum for a heavy quark is quite sensitive to $\hat e$, which quantify the amount of light-cone drag experienced by a parton. This effect leads to an additional energy loss term for heavy-quarks. From heavy flavor suppression data in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions one can now estimate the value of this sub-leading non-perturbative jet transport parameter ($\hat e$…
The energy densities achieved during central collisions of large nuclei at Brookhaven's AGS may be high enough to allow the formation of quark--gluon plasma. Calculations based on relativistic nucleation theory suggest that rare events, perhaps one in every 10$^2$ or 10$^3$, undergo the phase transition. Experimental ramifications may include an enhancement in the ratio of pions to baryons, a reduction in the ratio of deuterons to protons, and a larger source size as seen by hadron interferometry.
We study linear and nonlinear wave propagation in a dense and cold hadron gas and also in a cold quark gluon plasma, taking viscosity into account and using the Navier-Stokes equation. The equation of state of the hadronic phase is derived from the nonlinear Walecka model in the mean field approximation. The quark gluon plasma phase is described by the MIT equation of state. We show that in a hadron gas viscosity strongly damps wave propagation and also hinders shock wave formation. This marked difference between the two phases may have phenomenological consequences and lead to new QGP signatu…
We present a new determination of $\hat{q}$, the jet transport coefficient of the quark-gluon plasma. Using the JETSCAPE framework, we use Bayesian parameter estimation to constrain the dependence of $\hat{q}$ on the jet energy, virtuality, and medium temperature from experimental measurements of inclusive hadron suppression in Au-Au collisions at RHIC and Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC. These results are based on a multi-stage theoretical approach to in-medium jet evolution with the MATTER and LBT jet quenching models. The functional dependence of $\hat{q}$ on jet energy, virtuality, and medium …
We use linear viscous hydrodynamics to describe the energy and momentum deposited by a fast moving parton in a quark gluon plasma. This energy-momentum is in turn used to compute the probability density for the production of soft partons by means of the Cooper-Frye formula. We use this probability density to render manifest a relation between the average transverse momentum given to the fast moving parton from the medium $\hat{q}$, the entropy density to shear viscosity ratio $η/s$ and the energy lost by the fast moving parton $ΔE$ in an expanding medium under similar conditions to those gener…
We calculate the thermodynamic potential of bubbles of hadrons embedded in quark-gluon plasma, and of droplets of quark-gluon plasma embedded in hadron phase. This is a generalization of our previous results to the case of non-zero chemical potentials. As in the zero chemical potential case, we find that a quark-gluon plasma in thermodynamic equilibrium may contain stable bubbles of hadrons of radius $R \simeq 1$ fm. The calculations are performed within the MIT Bag model, using an improved multiple reflection expansion. The results are of relevance for neutron star phenomenology and for ultra…
The effects of dissipation on the space time evolution of matter formed in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collision is discussed. The thermal photon spectra for RHIC and LHC energies with viscous flow is considered. The effects of viscosity in the thermal single photon spectra is seen to be important in QGP phase as compared to the hadronic phase. Recently available data from WA80 group at SPS energies for $S+Au$ collision are compared with theoretical calculations. The experimental data do not appear to be compatible with the formation of matter in the pure hadronic phase.
We introduce a combined macroscopic/microscopic transport approach employing relativistic hydrodynamics for the early, dense, deconfined stage of the reaction and a microscopic non-equilibrium model for the later hadronic stage where the equilibrium assumptions are not valid anymore. Within this approach we study the dynamics of hot, bulk QCD matter, which is expected to be created in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions at the SPS, the RHIC and the LHC. Our approach is capable of self-consistently calculating the freeze-out of the hadronic system, while accounting for the collective flow o…
Within the framework of a high-twist approach, we show the first complete next-to-leading order calculation of transverse momentum broadening in semi-inclusive deeply inelastic $e+A$ scattering and Drell-Yan dilepton production in $p+A$ collisions. We demonstrate at one-loop level how QCD factorization holds for multiple scattering in nuclear medium, and the university of the associated quark-gluon correlation function. Our calculation also identifies QCD evolution equation for the quark-gluon correlation function, which determines the QCD factorization scale and energy dependence of jet trans…
Multi-particle potentials from light-like Wilson lines in quark-gluon plasmas: a generalized relation of in-medium splitting rates to jet-quenching parameters $\hat q$
Effective chiral Lagrangians involving constituent quarks, Goldstone bosons and long-distance gluons are believed to describe the strong interactions in an intermediate energy region between the confinement scale and the chiral symmetry breaking scale. Baryons and mesons in such a description are bound states of constituent quarks. We discuss the combined use of the techniques of effective chiral field theory and of the field theoretic method known as Fock-Tani representation to derive effective hadron interactions. The Fock-Tani method is based on a change of representation by means of a unit…
The average transverse momentum transfer per unit path length to a fast parton scattering elastically in a perturbative quark-gluon plasma is related to the radiative energy loss of the parton. We first calculate the momentum transfer coefficient $\hat q$ in terms of a classical Langevin problem and then define it quantum-mechanically through scattering matrix element. After treating the well known case of a quark-gluon plasma in equilibrium we consider an off-equilibrium unstable plasma. As a specific example, we treat the two-stream plasma with unstable modes of longitudinal chromoelectric f…
The inclusive distributions of gluons and pions for high-energy NN collisions are calculated. The results for several unintegrated gluon distributions (UGD's) from the literature are compared. We find huge differences in both rapidity and $p_t$ of gluons and $π$'s in NN collisions for different models of UGD's. The Karzeev-Levin UGD gives good description of momentum distribution of charged hadrons at midrapidities. We find, however, that the gluonic mechanism discussed does not describe the inclusive spectra of charged particles in the fragmentation region. Some of the missing mechanisms are …
The exclusive vector meson production cross section is one of the most promising observables to probe the high energy regime of the QCD dynamics. In particular, the squared momentum transfer ($t$) distributions are an important source of information about the spatial distribution of the gluons in the hadron and about fluctuations of the color fields. In this paper we complement previous studies on exclusive vector meson photoproduction in hadronic collisions presenting a comprehensive analysis of the $t$ - spectrum measured in exclusive $ρ$, $ϕ$ and $J/Ψ$ photoproduction in $pp$ and $PbPb$ col…
We investigate mass shifts of charmonia driven by change of the gluon condensate below but near transition temperatures at finite baryonic chemical potential. Extending previous prescription on the relation between gluon condensates and thermodynamic quantities, we model the gluon condensates of hadronic matter at finite temperature and baryonic chemical potential such that the scalar gluon condensate fits with the latest lattice QCD data. By making use of the QCD sum rule and the second order Stark effect, we find that the smoother transition in the full QCD can lead to moderate mass shifts o…
The jet transport coefficient $\hat{q}$ is the leading transport coefficient that controls the modification of hard jets produced in heavy-ion collisions. This coefficient is inherently non-perturbative, and hence, is challenging to compute from first principles. In this report, we present a perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) and lattice gauge theory based formulation to study $\hat{q}$. We formulate $\hat{q}$ within a 4-dimensional (4D) quenched SU(3) lattice. We consider a leading order diagram for a hard parton passing through the quark-gluon plasma. The non-perturbative part is exp…
To prove the momentum sum rule in the operator product expansion (OPE) in QCD at high energy colliders it is assumed that $<P| {\hat T}^{++}(0)|P>=2(P^+)^2$ where $|P>$ is the momentum eigenstate of the hadron $H$ with momentum $P^μ$ and ${\hat T}^{++}(0)$ is the $++$ component of the gauge invariant color singlet energy-momentum tensor density operator ${\hat T}^{μν}(0)$ of all the quarks plus antiquarks plus gluons inside the hadron $H$. However, in this paper, we show that this relation $<P| {\hat T}^{++}(0)|P>=2(P^+)^2$ is correct if ${\hat T}^{μν}(0)$ is the energy-momentum tensor density…
Quark-gluon plasma produced at the early stage of ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is unstable, if weakly coupled, due to the anisotropy of its momentum distribution. Chromomagnetic fields are spontaneously generated and can reach magnitudes much exceeding typical values of the fields in equilibrated plasma. We consider a high energy test parton traversing an unstable plasma that is populated with strong fields. We study the momentum broadening parameter $\hat q$ which determines the radiative energy loss of the test parton. We develop a formalism which gives $\hat q$ as the solution of …
Based on interaction potentials between a heavy quark and antiquark as extracted from recent QCD lattice calculations, we set up a Brueckner-type many-body scheme to study the properties of light (anti-) quarks in a Quark-Gluon Plasma at moderate temperatures, $T\simeq$ 1-2 $T_c$. The quark-antiquark $T$-matrix, including both color-singlet and -octet channels, and corresponding quark self-energies and spectral functions are calculated self-consistently. The repulsive octet potential induces quasiparticle masses of up to 150 MeV, whereas the attractive color-singlet part generates resonance st…
We compute the jet quenching parameter $\hat q$ of QCD plasma in the presence of strong magnetic field in both weakly and strongly coupled regimes. In weakly coupled regime, we compute $\hat q$ in perturbative QCD at complete leading order (that is, leading log as well as the constant under the log) in QCD coupling constant $α_s$, assuming the hierarchy of scales $α_s eB\ll T^2\ll eB$. We consider two cases of jet orientations with respect to the magnetic field: 1) the case of jet moving parallel to the magnetic field, 2) the case jet moving perpendicular to the magnetic field. In the former c…
Within the picture of jet quenching induced by multiple parton scattering and gluon bremsstrahlung, medium modification of parton fragmentation functions and therefore the suppression of large transverse momentum hadron spectra are controlled by both the value and the space-time profile of the jet transport parameter along the jet propagation path. Experimental data on single hadron suppression in high-energy heavy-ion collisions at the RHIC energy are analyzed within the higher-twist (HT) approach to the medium modified fragmentation functions and the next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative …
The agreement of hydrodynamic predictions of differential elliptic flow and radial flow patterns with Au+Au data is one of the main lines of evidence suggesting the nearly perfect fluid properties of the strongly coupled Quark Gluon Plasma, sQGP, produced at RHIC. We study the sensitivity of this conclusion to different hydrodynamic assumptions on chemical and thermal freezeout after the sQGP hadronizes. We show that if chemical freezeout occurs at the hadronization time, the differential elliptic flow for pions increase with proper time in the late hadronic phase until thermal freezeout and l…
We study a thermodynamically consistent implementation of the nucleon volume in the mean field theory, and find that this volume has large consequences on the properties of hadronic matter under extreme conditions such as in astrophysical objects and high energy heavy-ion collisions. It is shown that we can reproduce the critical temperature $T_{c}\simeq 200$ MeV predicted by lattice QCD calculations for the phase transition from hadronic matter to quark-gluon plasma, by using parameters which are adjusted to fit all empirical data for normal nuclear matter.
We investigate the relativistic equation of state of hadronic matter and quark-gluon plasma at finite temperature and baryon density in the framework of the nonextensive statistical mechanics, characterized by power-law quantum distributions. We study the phase transition from hadronic matter to quark-gluon plasma by requiring the Gibbs conditions on the global conservation of baryon number and electric charge fraction. We show that nonextensive statistical effects play a crucial role in the equation of state and in the formation of mixed phase also for small deviations from the standard Boltz…
We investigate the relativistic equation of state of hadronic matter and quark-gluon plasma at finite temperature and baryon density in the framework of the non-extensive statistical mechanics, characterized by power-law quantum distributions. We impose the Gibbs conditions on the global conservation of baryon number, electric charge and strangeness number. For the hadronic phase, we study an extended relativistic mean-field theoretical model with the inclusion of strange particles (hyperons and mesons). For the quark sector, we employ an extended MIT-Bag model. In this context we focus on the…
Quark and gluon helicity flip generalized parton distributions (GPDs) address the transversity quark and gluon structure of the nucleon. In order to construct a theoretically consistent parametrization of these hadronic matrix elements, we work out the set of combinations of those GPDs suitable for the ${\rm SO}(3)$ partial wave (PW) expansion in the cross-channel. This universal result will help to build up a flexible parametrization of these important hadronic non-perturbative quantities, using for instance the approaches based on the conformal PW expansion of GPDs such as the Mellin-Barnes …
Brief review of the hadronic probes that are used to diagnose the quark-gluon plasma produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions and interrogate its properties. Emphasis is placed on probes that have significantly impacted our understanding of the nature of the quark-gluon plasma and confirmed its formation.
A new model of jet quenching in nuclear collisions, CUJET3.0, is constructed by generalizing the perturbative QCD based CUJET2.0 model to include two complementary non-perturbative features of the QCD confinement cross-over phase transition near $T_c\approx 160$ MeV: (1) the suppression of quark and gluon degrees of freedom and (2) the emergence of chromo-magnetic monopole degrees of freedom. Such a semi-Quark-Gluon-Monopole Plasma (sQGMP) microscopic scenario is tested by comparing predictions of the leading hadron nuclear modification factors, $R^h_{AA}(p_T>10{\rm GeV/c},\sqrt{s})$, and thei…
We utilize a new framework, CUJET3.0, to deduce the energy and temperature dependence of jet transport parameter, $\hat{q}(E>10\; {\rm GeV},T)$, from a combined analysis of available data on nuclear modification factor and azimuthal asymmetries from RHIC/BNL and LHC/CERN on high energy nuclear collisions. Extending a previous perturbative-QCD based jet energy loss model (known as CUJET2.0) with (2+1)D viscous hydrodynamic bulk evolution, this new framework includes three novel features of nonperturbative physics origin: (1) the Polyakov loop suppression of color-electric scattering (aka "semi-…
In this article we investigate how the drag coefficient $A$ and $\hat{q}$, the transverse momentum transfer by unit length, of charm quarks are modified if the QGP is not in complete thermal equilibrium using the dynamical quasi-particle model (DQPM) which reproduces both, the equation-of-state of the QGP and the spatial diffusion coefficient of heavy quarks as predicted by lattice QCD calculations. We study three cases: a) the QGP has an anisotropic momentum distribution of the partons which leads to an anisotropic pressure b) the QGP partons have higher or lower kinetic energies as compared …
In order to study the nuclear matter in the relativistic heavy ion collisions and the compact stars, we need the hadronic density of states for the entire ($μ_B-T$) phase transition diagram. We present a model for the continuous high-lying mass (and volume) spectrum density of states that fits the Hagedorn mass spectrum. This model explains the origin of the tri-critical point besides various phenomena such as the quarkyonic matter and the quark-gluon liquid. The Hagedorn mass spectrum is derived for the color-singlet quark-gluon bag with various internal structures such as the unimodular unit…
The centrality dependence of the antiproton per participant ratio is studied in Pb(160 AGeV)+Pb reactions. Antiproton production in collisions of heavy nuclei at the CERN/SPS seems considerably enhanced as compared to conventional hadronic physics, given by the antiproton production rates in $pp$ and antiproton annihilation in $\bar{p}p$ reactions. This enhancement is consistent with the observation of strong in-medium effects in other hadronic observables and may be an indication of partial restoration of chiral symmetry.
We study the evolution and saturation of the gluon distribution function in the quark-gluon plasma as probed by a propagating parton and its effect on the computation of jet quenching or transport parameter $\hat{q}$. For thermal partons, the saturation scale $Q^2_s$ is found to be proportional to the Debye screening mass $μ_D^2$. For hard probes, evolution at small $x=Q^2_s/6ET$ leads to jet energy dependence of $\hat{q}$. We study this dependence for both a conformal gauge theory in weak and strong coupling limit and for (pure gluon) QCD. The energy dependence can be used to extract the shea…
The case of gluon bremsstrahlung off a heavy quark in extended nuclear matter is revisited within the higher twist formalism. In particular, the in-medium modification of "semi-hard" heavy quarks is studied, where the momentum of the heavy quark is larger but comparable to the mass of the heavy quark ($p \gtrsim M$). In contrast to all prior calculations, where the gluon emission spectrum is entirely controlled by the transverse momentum diffusion parameter ($\hat q$), both for light and heavy quarks, in this work, we demonstrate that the gluon emission spectrum for a heavy quark (unlike that …
The azimuthal anisotropies of the collective transverse flow of hadrons are investigated in a large range of heavy-ion collision energy within the Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) microscopic transport approach which incorporates explicit partonic degrees of freedom in terms of strongly interacting quasiparticles (quarks and gluons) in line with an equation-of-state from lattice QCD as well as dynamical hadronization and hadronic dynamics in the final reaction phase. The experimentally observed increase of the elliptic flow $v_2$ with bombarding energy is successfully described in terms of…
We evaluate the electric dipole moment of charged leptons in the standard model, where the complex phase of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix is the only source of CP violation. We first prove that, at the quark-gluon level, it is suppressed by a factor of $m_b^2 m_c^2 m_s^2$ at all orders of perturbation due to the Glashow-Iliopoulos-Maiani mechanism. We then calculate the hadronic long distance contribution generated by vector mesons at one-loop level. The $|ΔS|=1$ weak hadronic interaction is derived using the factorization, and the strong interaction is modeled by the hidden local symme…
We compute total and differential elastic cross sections of high-energy hadronic collisions in the loop-loop correlation model that provides a unified description of hadron-hadron, photon-hadron, and photon-photon reactions. The impact parameter profiles of pp and gamma*p collisions are calculated. For ultra-high energies the hadron opacity saturates at the black disc limit which tames the growth of the hadronic cross sections in agreement with the Froissart bound. We compute the impact parameter dependent gluon distribution of the proton xG(x,Q^2,b) and find gluon saturation at small Bjorken …
We study the behavior of the scalar glueball inside a Quark Gluon Plasma. We follow the fireball from the plasma phase to the hadronic phase and observe that an interesting phenomenon might occur which could have experimental consequences as a signature of Quark Gluon Plasma.
We specify a tractable transport model with thermodynamic properties close to those expected for the strongly interacting matter. In particular, at high temperatures, the matter undergoes a phase transition, such as to the quark-gluon plasma, with a drop in masses of elementary excitations and a rapid increase in the number of degrees of freedom. We show that a softening of the equation of state such as associated with the transition to quark-gluon plasma should be observable in the elliptic-flow excitation function from heavy-ion reactions.
Within a multi-phase transport model with string melting scenario, jet transport parameter $\hat{q}$ is calculated in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN} } $= 200 GeV and Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN} } $= 2.76 TeV. The $\hat{q}$ increases with the increasing of jet energy for both partonic phase and hadronic phase. The energy and path length dependences of $\hat{q}$ in full heavy-ion evolution are consistent with the expectations of jet quenching. The correlation between jet transport parameter $\hat{q}$ and dijet transverse momentum asymmetry $A_{J}$ is mainly investigated, which discloses…
Nuclear modification factors of single hadrons and dihadrons at large transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) in high-energy heavy-ion collisions are studied in a next-to-leading-order (NLO) perturbative QCD parton model. Parton fragmentation functions (FFs) in $A+A$ collisions are modified due to jet energy loss which is proportional to the jet transport coefficient $\hat{q}$ characterizing the interaction between the parton jet and the produced medium. By confronting 6 current sets of NLO parton FFs for large $p_{\rm T}$ hadron productions, we extract $\hat{q}$ quantitatively via a global fit to d…
We investigate the influence of a temperature-dependent shear viscosity over entropy density ratio eta/s on the transverse momentum spectra and elliptic flow of hadrons in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We find that the elliptic flow in sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC is dominated by the viscosity in the hadronic phase and in the phase transition region, but largely insensitive to the viscosity of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). At the highest LHC energy, the elliptic flow becomes sensitive to the QGP viscosity and insensitive to the hadronic viscosity.
Using the MIT bag model, we calculate the free energy of droplets of quark-gluon plasma in a bulk hadronic medium, and of hadronic bubbles in a bulk quark-gluon plasma, under the assumption of vanishing chemical potentials. We investigate the validity of the multiple reflection expansion approximation, and we advise a novel procedure for calculating finite-size corrections to the free energy of hadronic bubbles in a bulk quark-gluon plasma. While our results agree largely with earlier calculations, we show that the usual multiple reflection expansion should be used with caution, and we propose…
