Chiral Magnetic Effect In Heavy-ion Collisions Research Articles

Probing the magnetic field strength dependence of the chiral magnetic effect

The article presents a study aimed at probing the dependence of the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) on the magnetic field strength using the Anomalous Viscous Fluid Dynamics (AVFD) model in Pb–Pb at LHC energies. The results demonstrate the quadratic dependence of the correlators used for the study of the CME in heavy ion collisions on the number of spectators, a proxy of the magnitude of the magnetic field. The article also presents the extension of this approach to a two dimensional space, formed by both the aforementioned proxy of the magnetic field strength but also a proxy of the final state ellipticity, a key ingredient of the background in these measurements, for each centrality interval. This provides an exciting possibility to experiments to isolate the background contributions from the potential CME signal.

A sensitivity study of the primary correlators used to characterize chiral-magnetically-driven charge separation

A Multi-Phase Transport (AMPT) model is used to study the detection sensitivity of two of the primary correlators – Δγ and RΨ2 – employed to characterize charge separation induced by the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME). The study, performed relative to several event planes for different input “CME signals”, indicates a detection threshold for the fraction fCME=ΔγCME/Δγ, which renders the Δγ-correlator insensitive to values of the Fourier dipole coefficient a1≲2.5%, that is larger than the purported signal (signal difference) for ion-ion(isobaric) collisions. By contrast, the RΨ2 correlator indicates concave-shaped distributions with inverse widths (σRΨ2−1) that are linearly proportional to a1, and independent of the character of the event plane used for their extraction. The sensitivity of the RΨ2 correlator to minimal CME-driven charge separation in the presence of realistic backgrounds, could aid better characterization of the CME in heavy-ion collisions.

Anomalous chiral transport in heavy ion collisions from Anomalous-Viscous Fluid Dynamics

Chiral anomaly is a fundamental aspect of quantum theories with chiral fermions. How such microscopic anomaly manifests itself in a macroscopic many-body system with chiral fermions, is a highly nontrivial question that has recently attracted significant interest. As it turns out, unusual transport currents can be induced by chiral anomaly under suitable conditions in such systems, with the notable example of the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) where a vector current (e.g. electric current) is generated along an external magnetic field. A lot of efforts have been made to search for CME in heavy ion collisions, by measuring the charge separation effect induced by the CME transport. A crucial challenge in such effort, is the quantitative prediction for the CME signal. In this paper, we develop the Anomalous-Viscous Fluid Dynamics (AVFD) framework, which implements the anomalous fluid dynamics to describe the evolution of fermion currents in QGP, on top of the neutral bulk background described by the VISH2+1 hydrodynamic simulations for heavy ion collisions. With this new tool, we quantitatively and systematically investigate the dependence of the CME signal to a series of theoretical inputs and associated uncertainties. With realistic estimates of initial conditions and magnetic field lifetime, the predicted CME signal is quantitatively consistent with measured change separation data in 200GeV Au–Au collisions. Based on analysis of Au–Au collisions, we further make predictions for the CME observable to be measured in the planned isobaric (Ru–Ru v.s. Zr–Zr) collision experiment, which could provide a most decisive test of the CME in heavy ion collisions.

Quantifying the chiral magnetic effect from anomalous-viscous fluid dynamics**This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, within the framework of the Beam Energy Scan Theory (BEST) Topical Collaboration. The work is also supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-1352368 (SS and JL), by

The Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) is a macroscopic manifestation of fundamental chiral anomaly in a many-body system of chiral fermions, and emerges as an anomalous transport current in the fluid dynamics framework. Experimental observation of the CME is of great interest and has been reported in Dirac and Weyl semimetals. Significant efforts have also been made to look for the CME in heavy ion collisions. Critically needed for such a search is the theoretical prediction for the CME signal. In this paper we report a first quantitative modeling framework, Anomalous Viscous Fluid Dynamics (AVFD), which computes the evolution of fermion currents on top of realistic bulk evolution in heavy ion collisions and simultaneously accounts for both anomalous and normal viscous transport effects. AVFD allows a quantitative understanding of the generation and evolution of CME-induced charge separation during the hydrodynamic stage, as well as its dependence on theoretical ingredients. With reasonable estimates of key parameters, the AVFD simulations provide the first phenomenologically successful explanation of the measured signal in 200 AGeV AuAu collisions.