High Energy Heavy Ion Reactions Research Articles

Evolution of the statistical disintegration of finite nuclei toward high energy

We develop a statistical approach for the description of complex nuclei formation from dynamically produced baryons in high energy heavy-ion reactions. We consider a finite highly-excited expanding nuclear system formed after central nucleus-nucleus collisions. This system is sub-divided into primary equilibrated nucleon clusters. The final nuclei are produced after the decay of these excited clusters. By the successful comparison with the FOPI experimental data we prove the possibility of such a local equilibrium in nuclear matter with the temperature corresponding to the phase coexistence region. The regularities obtained in this new nuclei production mechanism are shown.

Expanded Empirical Formula for Coulomb Final State Interaction in the Presence of Lévy Sources

Measurements of momentum space correlations in heavy ion reactions are a unique tools to investigate the properties of the created medium. However, these analyses require the careful handling of the final state interactions such as the Coulomb repulsion of the involved particles. In small systems such as $e^+ + e^-$ or $p+p$ the well-known Gamow factor gives an acceptable description but in the case of extended sources like that are created in heavy ion collisions, a more sophisticated approach has to be developed. In this paper we expand our previous work on the investigation of the Coulomb final state interaction in the presence of a L\'evy source. Such sources were shown to be a statistically acceptable assumption to describe the quantumstatistical correlation functions in high energy heavy ion reactions.

Further Studies of BURSTS and Spallation in High-Energy Heavy Ion Reactions

Aspects of BURSTS and Spallation reactions induced by high-energy heavy ions in thick targets (>10 cm thick) will be investigated: BURSTS are reviewed from a historical and phenomenological point-of-view. Details of interactions in nuclear emulsions will be compared for irradiations of 72 GeV 22Ne-ions from Dubna with irradiations of 72 GeV 40Ar-ions from Berkeley. Measured correlations in individual interactions between multiplicities of “minimum ionizing particles”, ns, and “black prongs”, nb, will be shown as “ns-vs.-nb” per event for BURSTS and separately for Spallation in interactions of 72 GeV 22Ne-ions. Monte Carlo calculations, based on the MCNPX 2.7 code, have been carried out for 72 GeV 22Ne interacting in nuclear emulsions: The correlation between ns and nb in Spallation reactions could be understood. However, “ns-vs.-nb” correlations from BURST-interactions could not be reproduced with this model for events with small numbers of heavy prongs nh ≤ 10. For large numbers of heavy prongs with nh > 10 one could find some agreement between experiments and calculations, however, not in all details. Further experimental and theoretical studies are necessary before one has a complete understanding of BURST interactions in high-energy heavy ion reactions.

Global collective flow in heavy ion reactions from the beginnings to the future

Fluid dynamical models preceded the first heavy ion accelerator experiments, and led to the main trend of this research since then. In recent years fluid dynamical processes became a dominant direction of research in high energy heavy ion reactions. The Quark–Gluon plasma formed in these reactions has low viscosity, which leads to significant fluctuations and turbulent instabilities. One has to study and separate these two effects, but this is not done yet in a systematic way. Here we present a few selected points of the early developments, the most interesting collective flow instabilities, their origins, their possible ways of detection and separation form random fluctuations arising from different origins, among these the most studied is the randomness of the initial configuration in the transverse plane.

Rotation and Turbulent Instability in Peripheral Heavy Ion Collisions

In recent years fluid dynamical processes became a dominant direction of re- search in high energy heavy ion reactions. The Quark-gluon Plasma formed in these reactions has low viscosity, which leads to significant fluctuations and special instabili- ties or flow patterns. One has to study and separate these two effects, but this is not done yet in a systematic way. This presentation presents the most interesting collective flow instabilities, their possible ways of detection and separation form random fluctuations arising from the randomness of the initial configuration in the transverse plane.

Review of Recent Results in Heavy Ion Fluid Dynamics

Fluid dynamical phenomena in high energy heavy ion reactions were predicted in the 1970s and still today these are the most dominant and basic observables. With in- creasing energy and the reach of QGP the low viscosity of the plasma became apparent and this brought a new revolution in the fluid dynamical studies. The high energy and low viscosity made it possible to observe fluctuations up to high multipolarity flow harmon- ics. This is an obvious, direct proof of the low viscosity of QGP. Many aspects of these fluctuations are under intensive study today. The low viscosity opened ways to observe special fluid dynamical turbulent phenomena. These may arise from random fluctuations, as well as from the global symmetries of peripheral collisions. At LHC energies the an- gular momentum of the participant matter can reach 10 6 ~, which leads to rotation and turbulent instabilities, like the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Low viscosity ensures that these remain observable at the final freeze-out stages of the collision. Thus new investi- gations in addition to the standard flow analysis methods became possible. Femtoscopy may also detect rotation and turbulence. Due to the high local thermal vorticity, particle polarization and orbital rotation may reach thermal and mechanical equilibrium. This leads to baryon polarization which, in given directions may be detectable.

Improved empirical parametrization of fragmentation cross sections

A new version is proposed for the universal empirical formula, EPAX, which describes fragmentation cross sections in high-energy heavy-ion reactions. The new version, EPAX 3, can be shown to yield cross sections that are in better agreement with experimental data for the most neutron-rich fragments than the previous version. At the same time, the very good agreement of EPAX 2 with data on the neutron-deficient side has been largely maintained. Comparison with measured cross sections show that the bulk of the data is reproduced within a factor of about 2, for cross sections down to the pico-barn range.

Studying hadrons in matter with PANDA

With the PANDA experiment at the FAIR facility in Darmstadt, Germany it will be possible to investigate antiproton-nucleus reactions in an energy range not explored so far. This provides opportunities for unique measurements of which some are outlined in this article. Possible modifications of hadron properties in nuclear matter is subject of extensive theoretical and experimental studies. With PANDA it will be possible to extend this kind of studies to the charm sector. A study of particular interest will be to measure the J/Ψ-nucleon dissociation cross-section. This cross-section is relevant for the interpretation of the J/Ψ suppression observed in high energy heavy ion reactions. Further topics include the study of antibaryons in nuclei and short-range nucleon-nucleon correlations.

Longitudinal correlation of the triangular flow event plane in a hybrid approach with hadron and parton cascade initial conditions

The longitudinal long-range correlations of the triangular flow event plane angles are calculated in a Boltzmann + hydrodynamics hybrid approach. The potential to disentangle different energy deposition scenarios is explored by utilizing two different transport approaches for the early non-equilibrium evolution. In the hadronic transport approach the particle production in high energy heavy ion reactions is mainly governed by string excitation and fragmentation processes which are absent in the parton cascade approach. We find that in both approaches the initial state shows a strong longitudinal correlation of the event plane angles which is diluted but still persists in the final state momentum space distributions of the produced particles. A ridge-like structure can also be caused by near-collinear gluon radiation in a parton cascade approach and does not necessarily prove longitudinal flux tubes in the initial state.

Disappearance of squeezed back-to-back correlations: a new signal of hadron freeze-out from a supercooled quark gluon plasma

We briefly discuss four different possible types of transitions from quark to hadronic matter and their characteristic signatures in terms of correlations. We also highlight the effects arising from mass modification of hadrons in hot and dense hadronic matter, as well as their quantum statistical consequences: the appearance of squeezed quantum states and the associated experimental signatures, i.e., the back-to-back correlations of particle-antiparticle pairs. We briefly review the theoretical results of these squeezed quanta, generated by in-medium modified masses, starting from the first indication of the existence of surprising particle-antiparticle correlations, and ending by considering the effects of chiral dynamics on these correlation patterns. Nevertheless, a prerequisite for such a signature is the experimental verification of its observability. Therefore, the experimental observation of back-to-back correlations in high energy heavy ion reactions would be a unique signature, proving the existence of in-medium mass modification of hadronic states. On the other hand, their disappearance at some threshold centrality or collision energy would indicate that the hadron formation mechanism would have qualitatively changed: asymptotic hadrons above such a threshold are not formed from medium modified hadrons anymore, but rather by new degrees of freedom characterizing the medium. Furthermore, the disappearance of the squeezed BBC could also serve as a signature of a sudden, non-equilibrium hadronization scenario from a supercooled quark-gluon plasma phase.

The role of local and global strangeness neutrality at the inhomogeneous freeze-out in relativistic heavy ion collisions

The decoupling surface in relativistic heavy-ion collisions may not be homogeneous. Rather, inhomogeneities should form when a rapid transition from high to low entropy density occurs. We analyze the hadron "chemistry" from high-energy heavy-ion reactions for the presence of such density inhomogeneities. We show that due to the non-linear dependence of the particle densities on the temperature and baryon-chemical potential such inhomogeneities should be visible even in the integrated, inclusive abundances. We analyze experimental data from Pb+Pb collisions at CERN-SPS and Au+Au collisions at BNL-RHIC to determine the amplitude of inhomogeneities and the role of local and global strangeness neutrality.

Equation of state of isospin-asymmetric nuclear matter in relativistic mean-field models with chiral limits

Using in-medium hadron properties according to the Brown–Rho scaling due to the chiral symmetry restoration at high densities and considering naturalness of the coupling constants, we have newly constructed several relativistic mean-field Lagrangians with chiral limits. The model parameters are adjusted such that the symmetric part of the resulting equation of state at supra-normal densities is consistent with that required by the collective flow data from high energy heavy-ion reactions, while the resulting density dependence of the symmetry energy at sub-saturation densities agrees with that extracted from the recent isospin diffusion data from intermediate energy heavy-ion reactions. The resulting equations of state have the special feature of being soft at intermediate densities but stiff at high densities naturally. With these constrained equations of state, it is found that the radius of a 1.4 M ⊙ canonical neutron star is in the range of 11.9 km ⩽ R ⩽ 13.1 km , and the maximum neutron star mass is around 2.0 M ⊙ close to the recent observations.

THREE DECADES OF COLLECTIVE FLOW

In high energy heavy ion reactions the study of collective flow phenomena was one of the basic research directions from the beginning, following the first ideas of Greiner and his colleagues in the early 1970s. In this talk some important developments of the field will be reviewed up to the most recent developments.

Covariant Kinetic Freeze-out Description through a Finite Space-Time Layer

The problem of freeze-out (FO) in high energy heavy ion reactions is addressed. We develop and analyze a covariant FO description valid for a finite space-time layer.

SURPRISES FROM THE SEARCH FOR QUARK-GLUON PLASMA? WHEN WAS QUARK-GLUON PLASMA SEEN?

The historical context of the recent results from high energy heavy ion reactions devoted to the search of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is reviewed, with emphasis on the surprises encountered. The evidence for QGP from heavy ion reactions is compared with that available from particle reactions.

Comparison between calculation and measured data on secondary neutron energy spectra by heavy ion reactions from different thick targets

Measured neutron energy fluences from high-energy heavy ion reactions through targets several centimeters to several hundred centimeters thick were compared with calculations made using the recently developed general-purpose particle and heavy ion transport code system (PHITS). It was confirmed that the PHITS represented neutron production by heavy ion reactions and neutron transport in thick shielding with good overall accuracy.

Modified Boltzmann Transport Equation and Freeze Out

We study the Freeze-Out process in high-energy heavy-ion reaction. The description of the process is based on the Boltzmann Transport Equation (BTE). We point out the basic limitations of the BTE approach and introduce the Modified BTE. The Freeze-Out dynamics is presented in the 4-dimensional space-time in a layer of finite thickness, and we employ the Modified BTE for the realistic Freeze-Out description.

Simulations of an accelerator-based shielding experiment using the particle and heavy-ion transport code system PHITS

In order to estimate the biological effects of HZE particles, an accurate knowledge of the physics of interaction of HZE particles is necessary. Since the heavy ion transport problem is a complex one, there is a need for both experimental and theoretical studies to develop accurate transport models. RIST and JAERI (Japan), GSI (Germany) and Chalmers (Sweden) are therefore currently developing and bench marking the General-Purpose Particle and Heavy-Ion Transport code System (PHITS), which is based on the NMTC and MCNP for nucleon/meson and neutron transport respectively, and the JAM hadron cascade model. PHITS uses JAERI Quantum Molecular Dynamics (JQMD) and the Generalized Evaporation Model (GEM) for calculations of fission and evaporation processes, a model developed at NASA Langley for calculation of total reaction cross sections, and the SPAR model for stopping power calculations. The future development of PHITS includes better parameterization in the JQMD model used for the nucleus–nucleus reactions, and improvement of the models used for calculating total reaction cross sections, and addition of routines for calculating elastic scattering of heavy ions, and inclusion of radioactivity and burn up processes. As a part of an extensive bench marking of PHITS, we have compared energy spectra of secondary neutrons created by reactions of HZE particles with different targets, with thicknesses ranging from <1 to 200 cm. We have also compared simulated and measured spatial, fluence and depth–dose distributions from different high energy heavy ion reactions. In this paper, we report simulations of an accelerator-based shielding experiment, in which a beam of 1 GeV/n Fe-ions has passed through thin slabs of polyethylene, Al, and Pb at an acceptance angle up to 4°.

Coulomb corrections to the three-body correlation function in high-energy heavy ion reactions

Starting from an asymptotically correct three-body Coulomb wave-function, we determine the effect of Coulomb final state interaction on the three-particle Bose-Einstein correlation function of similarly charged particles. We numerically estimate that the Riverside approximation is not precise enough to determine the three-body Coulomb correction factor in the correlation function, if the characteristic HBT radius parameter is 5–10 fm, which is the range of interest in high-energy heavy ion physics.

Analytic Solution of the Pion-Laser Model

Brooding over bosons, wave packets and Bose - Einstein correlations, we find that a generalization of the pion-laser model for the case of overlapping wave-packets is analytically solvable with complete n-particle symmetrization. The effective radius parameter of the two-particle correlation function is reduced for low values and enlargened for high values of the mean momentum in the rare gas limiting case, as compared to the case when multi-particle symmetrization effects are neglected. These results explicitly depend on the multiplicity, providing a theoretical basis for event-by-event analysis of high energy heavy ion reactions.