Heavy-ion Collision Experiments Research Articles

Masses and decay widths of charmonium states in the presence of strong magnetic fields

The masses and decay widths of charmonium states are studied in the presence of strong magnetic fields. The mixing between the pseudoscalar and vector charmonium states at rest is observed to lead to appreciable negative (positive) shifts in the masses of the pseudoscalar (longitudinal component of the vector) charmonium states in vacuum/hadronic medium in the presence of high magnetic fields. The pseudoscalar and vector charmonium masses in the hadronic medium, calculated in an effective chiral model from the medium changes of a scalar dilaton field, have additional significant modifications due to the mixing effects. The masses of the $D$ and $\bar D$ mesons in the magnetized hadronic matter are calculated within the chiral effective model. The partial decay widths of the vector charmonium state to $D\bar D$ are computed using a field theoretical model for composite hadrons with quark/antiquark constituents, and are compared to the decay widths calculated using an effective hadronic Lagrangian. The effects of the mixing are observed to lead to significant contributions to the masses of the pseusoscalar and vector charmonium states, and an appreciable increase in the decay width $\psi(3770) \rightarrow D\bar D$ at large values of the magnetic fields. These studies of the charmonium states in strong magnetic fields should have observable consequences on the dilepton spectra, as well as on the production of the open charm mesons and the charmonium states in ultra relativistic heavy ion collision experiments.

Axial-tensor Meson family at Tne 0

The mass and decay constants of rho _2,~omega _2 and a missing member in the 2^{--} nonet along with their first excited states are analyzed by the Thermal QCD sum rules approach, including QCD condensates up to dimension five. Mass and decay constant values of these mesons are stable from T=0 up to T cong 120 ~mathrm {MeV}. However, after this threshold point, our numerical analyses indicates that they begin to diminish with increasing temperature. When we compare the hadronic parameters with their vacuum values, masses of these mesons and their first excited states decrease between (1–13%) from the PDG data and (10–26%) for the decay constants. However they diminish in the interval of (9–26%) and (2–34%) respectively with regards to Regge Trajectory Model data. We expect our numerical results will be confirmed by future heavy-ion collision experiments.

Dynamics of critical fluctuations: Theory – phenomenology – heavy-ion collisions

This report summarizes the presentations and discussions during the Rapid Reaction Task Force “Dynamics of critical fluctuations: Theory – phenomenology – heavy-ion collisions”, which was organized by the ExtreMe Matter Institute EMMI and held at GSI, Darmstadt, Germany in April 2019. We address the current understanding of the dynamics of critical fluctuations in QCD and their measurement in heavy-ion collision experiments. In addition, we outline what might be learned from studying correlations in other physical systems, such as cold atomic gases.

Beam test of a PIN-diode read out PWO calorimeter with electron energies from 5 to 40 GeV at CERN SPS

The Chinese large-area violet-light-sensitive silicon photodiode PIN is one of the candidates of the lead tungstate crystal detector readout component of the photon spectrometer in the large heavy ion collision experiment. The PIN diode was assembled with the lead tungstate crystal and the low-noise preamplifier into a complete detector unit. The beam test was carried out on the SPS accelerator at CERN. The energy resolution was measured with the electron beam energy ranging from 5 to 40 GeV. The summation correction method was discussed, and an excellent linearity of the nominal beam energy versus the peak position of the detector was obtained, which showed the punch-through effect can be ignored.

Application of microscopic transport model in the study of nuclear equation of state from heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies

The equation of state (EOS) of nuclear matter, i.e., the thermodynamic relationship between the binding energy per nucleon, temperature, density, as well as the isospin asymmetry, has been a hot topic in nuclear physics and astrophysics for a long time. The knowledge of the nuclear EOS is essential for studying the properties of nuclei, the structure of neutron stars, the dynamics of heavy ion collision (HIC), as well as neutron star mergers. HIC offers a unique way to create nuclear matter with high density and isospin asymmetry in terrestrial laboratory, but the formed dense nuclear matter exists only for a very short period, one cannot measure the nuclear EOS directly in experiments. Practically, transport models which often incorporate phenomenological potentials as an input are utilized to deduce the EOS from the comparison with the observables measured in laboratory. The ultrarelativistic quantum molecular dynamics (UrQMD) model has been widely employed for investigating HIC from the Fermi energy (40 MeV per nucleon) up to the CERN Large Hadron Collider energies (TeV). With further improvement in the nuclear mean-field potential term, the collision term, and the cluster recognition term of the UrQMD model, the newly measured collective flow and nuclear stopping data of light charged particles by the FOPI Collaboration can be reproduced. In this article we highlight our recent results on the studies of the nuclear EOS and the nuclear symmetry energy with the UrQMD model. New opportunities and challenges in the extraction of the nuclear EOS from transport models and HIC experiments are discussed.

HQ collisional energy loss in a magnetized medium

We study the effect of the magnetic field on the collisional energy loss of heavy quark (HQ) moving in a magnetized thermal partonic medium. This is investigated in the strong field approximation where the lowest Landau level (LLL) becomes relevant. We work in the limit g sqrt{eB} ≪ T ≪ sqrt{eB} which is relevant for heavy ion collisions. Effects of the magnetic field are incorporated through the resummed gluon propagator in which the dominant contribution arises from the quark loop. We also take the approximation sqrt{eB} ≪ M , M being the HQ mass, so that the HQ is not Landau quantized. It turns out that there are only two types of scatterings that contribute to the energy loss of HQ; the Coulomb scattering of HQ with light quarks/anti-quarks and the t-channel Compton scattering. It is observed that for a given magnetic field, the dominant contribution to the collisional energy loss arises from Compton scattering process i.e., Qg → Qg. On the other hand, of the two processes, the Coulomb scattering i.e., Qq → Qq is more sensitive to the magnetic field. The net collisional energy loss is seen to increase with increase in the magnetic field. For a reasonable strength of the magnetic field, the field dependent contribution to the collisional energy loss is of the same order as to the case without magnetic field which can be important for the jet quenching phenomena in the heavy ion collision experiments.

ArXiv : Heavy-ion physics: freedom to do hot, dense, exciting QCD

In these two lectures I review the basics of heavy-ion collisions at relativistic energies and the physics we can do with them. I aim to cover the basics on the kinematics and observables in heavy-ion collider experiments, the basics on the phenomenology of the nuclear matter phase diagram, some of the model building and simulations currently used in the heavy-ion physics community and a selected list of amazing phenomenological discoveries and predictions.

Light nuclei production in Au+Au collisions at [formula omitted] = 5–200 GeV from JAM model

Light nuclei production is sensitive to the baryon density fluctuations and can be used to probe the QCD phase transition in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. In this work, we studied the production of proton, deuteron, triton in central Au+Au collisions at sNN = 5, 7.7, 11.5, 14.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 54.4, 62.4 and 200 GeV from a transport model (JAM). Based on the coalescence production of light nuclei, we calculated the energy dependence of rapidity density dN/dy and particle ratios (d/p, t/p, and t/d). More importantly, the yield ratio Nt×Np/Nd2, which is sensitive to the neutron density fluctuations, shows a flat energy dependence and cannot describe the non-monotonic trend observed by the STAR experiment. Based on the nucleon coalescence, this work can provide constraint and reference to search for the QCD critical point and/or first order phase transition with light nuclei production in future heavy-ion collision experiments.

A Study of the Properties of the QCD Phase Diagram in High-Energy Nuclear Collisions

With the aim of understanding the phase structure of nuclear matter created in high-energy nuclear collisions at finite baryon density, a beam energy scan program has been carried out at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). In this mini-review, most recent experimental results on collectivity, criticality and heavy flavor productions will be discussed. The goal here is to establish the connection between current available data and future heavy-ion collision experiments in a high baryon density region.

Elliptic Flow of Hadrons via Quark Coalescence Mechanism Using the Boltzmann Transport Equation for Pb+Pb Collision at sNN=2.76 TeV

Elliptic flow of hadrons observed at relativistic heavy ion collision experiments at relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC) and large hadron collider (LHC) provides us an important signature of possible deconfinement transition from the hadronic phase to partonic phase. However, hadronization processes of deconfined partons back into final hadrons are found to play a vital role in the observed hadronic flow. In the present work, we use a coalescence mechanism also known as recombination (ReCo) to combine quarks into hadrons. To get there, we have used the Boltzmann transport equation in relaxation time approximation to transport the quarks into equilibration and finally to freeze-out the surface, before coalescence takes place. A Boltzmann-Gibbs blast wave (BGBW) function is taken as an equilibrium function to get the final distribution and a power-like function to describe the initial distributions of partons produced in heavy ion collisions. In the present work, we try to estimate the elliptic flow of identified hadrons such as π, K, and p, produced in Pb+Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV at the LHC for different centralities. The elliptic flow (v2) of identified hadrons seems to be described quite well in the available pT range. After the evolution of quarks until freeze-out time has been calculated using BTE-RTA, the approach used in this paper consists of combining two or more quarks to explain the produced hadrons at intermediate momenta regions. The formalism is found to describe the elliptic flow of hadrons produced in Pb+Pb collisions to a large extent.

Systematics of chemical freeze-out parameters in heavy-ion collision experiments

We discuss systematic uncertainties in the chemical freeze-out parameters from the $\chi^2$ analysis of hadron multiplicity ratios in the heavy-ion collision experiments. The systematics due to the choice of specific hadron ratios are found to lie within the experimental uncertainties. The variations obtained by removing the usual constraints on the conserved charges show similar behavior. The net charge to net baryon ratios in such unconstrained systems are commensurate with the expected value obtained from the protons and neutrons of the colliding nuclei up to the center of mass energies $\sim 40$ GeV. Beyond that the uncertainties in this ratio gradually increases, possibly indicating the reduction in baryon stopping.

Characterisation of SiPM radiation hardness for application in hadron calorimeters at FAIR, CERN and NICA

Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPM) are an excellent choice for the scintillator light readout at hadron calorimeters due to their insensitivity to magnetic fields, low operating voltages, low cost, compactness and mechanical endurance. They are already successfully utilized in Projectile Spectator Detector (PSD) of NA61 at CERN, and will be utilized soon in PSD of CBM at FAIR and Forward Hadron CALorimeters (FHCAL) of BM@N at NICA heavy-ion collision experiments. The main issue of SiPM application is their degradation due to high neutron fluence that can reach up to 2×1011 neq/cm2 per year of the experiment operation. Multiple irradiation tests of SiPMs produced by Ketek, Zecotek, Hamamatsu and Sensl manufacturers were conducted at the cyclotron of NPI Řež with a broad neutron spectrum and total fluences in the wide range of 5×1010–6×1012 neq/cm2. Detailed characterisation of all SiPMs was performed based on dependencies of dark current on voltage, capacitance on voltage and frequency, and response to LED light on voltage. SiPM's breakdown voltage, quenching resistance, pixel capacitance, gain and signal to noise ratio were extracted from these measurements. Those parameters' dependence on neutron fluence and their variability are discussed. Performance of the PSD calorimeter module equipped with irradiated SiPMs in CERN during the beam scan with 2–80 GeV/c protons is briefly overviewed.

Monopole-antimonopole pair production by magnetic fields.

Quantum electrodynamics predicts that in a strong electric field, electron-positron pairs are produced by the Schwinger process, which can be interpreted as quantum tunnelling through the Coulomb potential barrier. If magnetic monopoles exist, monopole-antimonopole pairs would be similarly produced in strong magnetic fields by the electromagnetic dual of this process. The production rate can be computed using semiclassical techniques without relying on perturbation theory, and therefore it can be done reliably in spite of the monopoles' strong coupling to the electromagnetic field. This article explains this phenomenon and discusses the bounds on monopole masses arising from the strongest magnetic fields in the universe, which are in neutron stars known as magnetars and in heavy ion collision experiments such as lead-lead collisions carried out in November 2018 in the large Hadron collider at CERN. It will also discuss open theoretical questions affecting the calculation. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Topological avatars of new physics'.

Charmonia and bottomonia in asymmetric magnetized hot nuclear matter

We investigate the mass-shift of P-wave charmonium ( , ), and S and P-wave bottomonium ( , , , and ) states in magnetized hot asymmetric nuclear matter using the unification of QCD sum rules (QCDSR) and the chiral model. Within QCDSR, we use two approaches, i.e., the moment sum rule and the Borel sum rule. The magnetic field induced scalar gluon condensate and the twist-2 gluon operator calculated in the chiral ) model are utilised in QCD sum rules to calculate the in-medium mass-shift of the above mesons. The attractive mass-shift of these mesons is observed, which is more sensitive to magnetic field in the high density regime for charmonium, however less so for bottomonium. These results may be helpful to understand the decay of higher quarkonium states to the lower quarkonium states in asymmetric heavy ion collision experiments.

Interplay between SU(Nf) chiral symmetry, U(1)A axial anomaly, and massless bosons

The standard wisdom on the origin of massless bosons in the spectrum of a Quantum Field Theory $(QFT)$ describing the interaction of gauge fields coupled to matter fields is based on two well known features: gauge symmetry, and spontaneous symmetry breaking of continuous global symmetries. However we will show in this article how the topological properties, that originate the $U(1)_A$ axial anomaly in a $QFT$ which describes the interaction of fermion matter fields and gauge bosons, are the basis of an alternative mechanism to generate massless bosons in the chiral limit, if the non-abelian $SU(N_f)_A$ chiral symmetry is fulfilled in the vacuum. We will also test our predictions with the results of a well known two-dimensional model, the two-flavour Schwinger model, which was analyzed by Coleman long ago, and will give a reliable answer to some of the questions he asked himself on the spectrum of the model in the strong-coupling (chiral) limit. We will also analyze what are the expectations for the $U(N)$ gauge-fermion model in two dimensions, and will discuss on the impact of our results in the chirally symmetric high temperature phase of $QCD$, which was present in the early universe, and is expected to be created in heavy-ion collision experiments.

Novel scheme for parametrizing the chemical freeze-out surface in heavy ion collision experiments

We introduce a new prescription for obtaining the chemical freeze-out parameters in the heavy-ion collision experiments using the Hadron Resonance Gas model. The scheme is found to reliably estimate the freeze-out parameters and predict the hadron yield ratios, which themselves were never used in the parametrization procedure.

Effects of a non-zero strangeness-chemical potential in strong interaction models

The effect of a non-zero strangeness chemical potential on the strong interaction phase diagram has been studied within the framework of the SU(3) quark-hadron chiral parity-doublet model. Both, the nuclear liquid-gas and the chiral/deconfinement phase transitions are modified. The first-order line in the chiral phase transition is observed to vanish completely, with the entire phase boundary becoming a crossover. These changes in the nature of the phase transitions are expected to modify various susceptibilities, the effects of which might be detectable in particle-number distributions resulting from moderate-temperature and high-density heavy-ion collision experiments.

Effect of limited statistics on higher order cumulants measurement in heavy-ion collision experiments

We have studied the effect of limited statistics of data on the measurement of the different order of cumulants of net-proton distribution assuming that the proton and antiproton follow Poissonian and Binomial distributions. The initial parameters for the distributions are determined from experimental results for the two top center of mass energies (sNN=200 and 62.4 GeV) in the most central (0−5%) Au+Au collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). In this simulation, the minimum event statistics needed for accurate determination of fourth (C4) and sixth (C6) order cumulants if the signal strength (phase transition or critical point) is at a level of 5% (10%) above the statistical level, is of the order 106 (105.6) and 109 (108.6), respectively. We also present a study on the determination of the statistical error on cumulants using delta theorem, bootstrap and sub-group methods. We have verified their suitability by employing a Monte Carlo procedure. Based on our study we find that the bootstrap method provides a robust way for statistical error estimation on higher order cumulants. These studies will help the experiments to arrive at the minimum required event statistics and the choice of proper method for statistical error estimation for higher order cumulant measurements.

Deformed QCD phase structure and entropy oscillation in the presence of a magnetic background

The QCD phase transitions are investigated in the presence of an external magnetic field in the Polyakov improved Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model. We detailedly analyze that how the filling of multiple Landau levels by light (up and down) quarks deforms the QCD phase structure under different magnetic fields. In particular, we concentrate on the phase transition under a magnetic field possibly reachable in the non-central heavy-ion collisions at RHIC. The numerical result shows that two first-order transitions or more complicate phase transition in the light quark sector can exist for some magnetic fields, different from the phase structure under a very strong or zero magnetic field. These phenomena are very interesting and possibly relevant to the non-central heavy-ion collision experiments with colliding energies at several $A$ GeV as well as the equation of state of magnetars. Besides, we investigate the entropy oscillation with the increase of baryon density in a magnetic background.

Thermal-FIST: A package for heavy-ion collisions and hadronic equation of state

Thermal-FIST11Thermal-FIST — Thermal, Fast and Interactive Statistical Toolkit. is a C++ package designed for convenient general-purpose physics analysis within the family of hadron resonance gas (HRG) models. This mainly includes the statistical analysis of particle production in heavy-ion collisions and the phenomenology of hadronic equation of state. Notable features include fluctuations and correlations of conserved charges, effects of probabilistic decay, chemical non-equilibrium, and inclusion of van der Waals hadronic interactions. Calculations are possible within the grand canonical ensemble, the canonical ensemble, as well as in mixed-canonical ensembles combining the canonical treatment of certain conserved charges with the grand-canonical treatment of other conserved charges. The package contains a fast thermal event generator, which generates particle yields in accordance with the HRG chemistry, and particle momenta based on the Blast Wave model. A distinct feature of this package is the presence of the graphical user interface frontend – QtThermalFIST – which is designed for fast and convenient general-purpose HRG model applications. Program summaryProgram Title:Thermal-FIST, version 1.2Program Files doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/pprr8p4fkp.1Licensing provisions: GPLv3Programming language: C++External routines:Eigen template library for the linear algebra routines [1], MINUIT2 package from CERN ROOT [2], Mersenne Twister random number generator [3], Qt5 framework [4] (for the GUI only), QCustomPlot Qt widget [5] (for the GUI only)Nature of problem: The HRG model and its various modifications constitute a common framework used for modeling of the hadronic equation of state and particle production in heavy-ion collisions. Even the simplest versions of the HRG model require careful considerations of the many details, including the resonance decay feed-down, implementation of charge conservation constraints relevant for heavy-ion collisions, chemical non-equilibrium effects. A notable extra effort is required in order to treat the fluctuations and correlations of various charges , which presently are being extensively studied in the heavy-ion collision experiments and lattice QCD calculations. The inclusion of hadronic interactions, modeled by an excluded-volume (EV) or a van der Waals (vdW) type framework, additionally requires a numerical solution to a system of many transcendental equations.Solution method: The Thermal-FIST package contains a class-based library which calculates relevant HRG observables for a specified setup. The setup includes a particle list, usually to be supplied with an external file, an HRG model specification (statistical ensemble, van der Waals interaction parameters, etc.), a set of thermal parameters, and conservation laws constraints. Whenever necessary, the systems of transcendental equations are solved numerically with the Broyden’s method. The package includes a fitter for extracting thermal parameters from hadron yield data through the χ2 minimization. The HRG model based Monte Carlo event generator is a complementary feature to analytic calculations. A general-purpose thermal analysis is made maximally convenient with QtThermalFIST — a GUI frontend based on the Qt framework where all typical calculations, such as the properties of the equation of state or the thermal fits, can be straightforwardly performed.Additional comments: If the EV/vdW interactions are present, exact analytic calculations are presently only possible within the grand canonical ensemble. Approximate calculations are possible for the strangeness-canonical ensemble on the condition that strange particles form a small subsystem relative to the total system. Effects of probabilistic decays on fluctuation observables are generally included only up to the moments of the 2nd order. The only exception is the ideal HRG model in the grand canonical ensemble, where these effects are included up to the moments of the 4th order. On the other hand, the Monte Carlo event generator is not constrained by the above restrictions.