Top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider Research Articles

Search for the chiral magnetic effect in Au+Au collisions at [formula omitted] GeV with the STAR forward event plane detectors

A decisive experimental test of the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) is considered one of the major scientific goals at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) towards understanding the nontrivial topological fluctuations of the Quantum Chromodynamics vacuum. In heavy-ion collisions, the CME is expected to result in a charge separation phenomenon across the reaction plane, whose strength could be strongly energy dependent. The previous CME searches have been focused on top RHIC energy collisions. In this Letter, we present a low energy search for the CME in Au+Au collisions at sNN=27 GeV. We measure elliptic flow scaled charge-dependent correlators relative to the event planes that are defined at both mid-rapidity |η|<1.0 and at forward rapidity 2.1<|η|<5.1. We compare the results based on the directed flow plane (Ψ1) at forward rapidity and the elliptic flow plane (Ψ2) at both central and forward rapidity. The CME scenario is expected to result in a larger correlation relative to Ψ1 than to Ψ2, while a flow driven background scenario would lead to a consistent result for both event planes. In 10-50% centrality, results using three different event planes are found to be consistent within experimental uncertainties, suggesting a flow driven background scenario dominating the measurement. We obtain an upper limit on the deviation from a flow driven background scenario at the 95% confidence level. This work opens up a possible road map towards future CME search with the high statistics data from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan Phase-II.

Measurement of the Sixth-Order Cumulant of Net-Proton Multiplicity Distributions in Au+Au Collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=27, 54.4, and 200GeV at RHIC.

According to first-principle lattice QCD calculations, the transition from quark-gluon plasma to hadronic matter is a smooth crossover in the region μ_{B}≤T_{c}. In this range the ratio, C_{6}/C_{2}, of net-baryon distributions are predicted to be negative. In this Letter, we report the first measurement of the midrapidity net-proton C_{6}/C_{2} from 27, 54.4, and 200GeV Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The dependence on collision centrality and kinematic acceptance in (p_{T}, y) are analyzed. While for 27 and 54.4GeV collisions the C_{6}/C_{2} values are close to zero within uncertainties, it is observed that for 200GeV collisions, the C_{6}/C_{2} ratio becomes progressively negative from peripheral to central collisions. Transport model calculations without critical dynamics predict mostly positive values except for the most central collisions within uncertainties. These observations seem to favor a smooth crossover in the high-energy nuclear collisions at top RHIC energy.

Impact of Nuclear Deformation on Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions: Assessing Consistency in Nuclear Physics across Energy Scales.

In the hydrodynamic framework of heavy-ion collisions, elliptic flow v_{2} is sensitive to the quadrupole deformation β of the colliding ions. This enables one to test whether the established knowledge on the low-energy structure of nuclei is consistent with collider data from high-energy experiments. We derive a formula based on generic scaling laws of hydrodynamics to relate the difference in v_{2} measured between collision systems that are close in size to the value of β of the respective species. We validate our formula in simulations of ^{238}U+^{238}U and ^{197}Au+^{197}Au collisions at top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energy, and subsequently apply it to experimental data. Using the deformation of ^{238}U from low-energy experiments, we find that RHIC v_{2} data implies 0.16≲|β|≲0.20 for ^{197}Au nuclei, i.e., significantly more deformed than reported in the literature, posing an interesting issue in nuclear phenomenology.

Excitation Functions of Related Parameters from Transverse Momentum (Mass) Spectra in High-Energy Collisions

Transverse momentum (mass) spectra of positively and negatively charged pions and of positively and negatively charged kaons, protons, and antiprotons produced at mid-(pseudo)rapidity in various collisions at high energies are analyzed in this work. The experimental data measured in central gold-gold, central lead-lead, and inelastic proton-proton collisions by several international collaborations are studied. The (two-component) standard distribution is used to fit the data and extract the excitation function of effective temperature. Then, the excitation functions of kinetic freeze-out temperature, transverse flow velocity, and initial temperature are obtained. In the considered collisions, the four parameters increase with the increase of collision energy in general, and the kinetic freeze-out temperature appears at the trend of saturation at the top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider.

Particle Production in XeXe Collisions at the LHC within the Integrated Hydrokinetic Model

The paper is devoted to the theoretical study of particle production in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Xe+Xe collisions at the energy s N N = 5 . 44 TeV. The description of common bulk observables, such as mean charged particle multiplicity, particle number ratios, and p T spectra, is obtained within the integrated hydrokinetic model, and the simulation results are compared to the corresponding experimental points. The comparison shows that the model is able to adequately describe the measured data for the considered collision type, similarly as for the cases of Pb+Pb LHC collisions and top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energy Au+Au collisions, analyzed in our previous works.

Energy dependent kinetic freeze-out temperature and transverse flow velocity in high energy collisions

Transverse momentum spectra of negative and positive pions produced at mid-(pseudo)rapidity in inelastic or non-single-diffractive proton-proton collisions and in central nucleus-nucleus collisions over an energy range from a few GeV to above 10 TeV are analyzed by a (two-component) blast-wave model with Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics and with Tsallis statistics respectively. The model results are in similarly well agreement with the experimental data measured by a few productive collaborations who work at the Heavy Ion Synchrotron (SIS), Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), and Large Hadron Collider (LHC), respectively. The energy dependent kinetic freeze-out temperature and transverse flow velocity are obtained and analyzed. Both the quantities have quick increase from the SIS to SPS, and slight increase or approximate invariability from the top RHIC to LHC. Around the energy bridge from the SPS to RHIC, the considered quantities in proton-proton collisions obtained by the blast-wave model with Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics show more complex energy dependent behavior comparing with the results in other three cases.

Dilepton radiation and bulk viscosity in heavy-ion collisions

Starting from IP-Glasma initial conditions, we investigate the effects of bulk pressure on thermal dilepton production at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies. Though results of the thermal dilepton v2 under the influence of both bulk and shear viscosity is presented for top RHIC energy, more emphasis is put on LHC energy where such a calculation is computed for the first time. The effects of the bulk pressure on thermal dilepton v2 at the LHC are explored through bulk-induced modifications on the dilepton yield.

Highlights from STAR heavy ion program

Recent experimental results obtained in STAR experiment at the Relativistic heavy-ion collider (RHIC) with ion beams will be discussed. Investigations of different nuclear collisions in some recent years focus on two main tasks, namely, detail study of quark-gluon matter properties and exploration of the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) phase diagram. Results at top RHIC energy show clearly the collective behavior of heavy quarks in nucleus-nucleus interactions. Jet and heavy hadron measurements lead to new constraints for energy loss models for various flavors. Heavy-ion collisions are unique tool for the study of topological properties of theory as well as the magneto-hydrodynamics of strongly interacting matter. Experimental results obtained for discrete QCD symmetries at finite temperatures confirm indirectly the topologically non-trivial structure of QCD vacuum. Finite global vorticity observed in non-central Au+Au collisions can be considered as important signature for presence of various chiral effects in sQGP. Most results obtained during stage I of the RHIC beam energy scan (BES) program show smooth behavior vs initial energy. However certain results suggest the transition in the domain of dominance of hadronic degrees of freedom at center-of-mass energies between 10--20 GeV. The stage II of the BES at RHIC will occur in 2019--2020 and will explore with precision measurements in the domain of the QCD phase diagram with high baryon densities. Future developments and more precise studies of features of QCD phase diagram in the framework of stage II of RHIC BES will be briefly discussed.

Thermalization of dense hadronic matter in Au + Au collisions at energies available at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research

The conditions of local thermodynamic equilibrium of baryons (nonstrange, strange) and mesons (strange) are presented for central Au + Au collisions at Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) energies using the microscopic transport model UrQMD. The net particle density, longitudinal-to-transverse pressure anisotropy, and inverse slope parameters of the energy spectra of nonstrange and strange hadrons are calculated inside a cell in the central region within rapidity window $|y|l1.0$ at different time steps after the collisions. We observed that the strangeness content is dominated by baryons at all energies; however, contributions from mesons become significant at higher energies. The time scale obtained from local pressure (momentum) isotropization and thermalization of energy spectra are nearly equal and found to decrease with increase in laboratory energy. The equilibrium thermodynamic properties of the system are obtained with a statistical thermal model. The time evolution of the entropy densities at FAIR energies are found to be very similar to the ideal hydrodynamic behavior at top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energy.

Importance of different energy loss effects in jet suppression at the RHIC and the LHC

Jet suppression is considered to be an excellent probe of quantum chromodynamic (QCD) matter created in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. Our theoretical predictions of jet suppression, which are based on our recently developed dynamical energy loss formalism, show a robust agreement with various experimental data, which spans across different probes, experiments (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC)) and experimental conditions (i.e. all available centrality regions). This formalism includes several key ingredients, such as the inclusion of dynamical scattering centers, a finite size QCD medium, collisional energy loss, finite magnetic mass and running coupling. While these effects have to be included based on theoretical grounds, it is currently unclear what their individual importance is in accurately interpreting the experimental data; in particular because other approaches to suppression predictions commonly neglect some—or all—of these effects. To address this question, we study the relative importance of these effects in obtaining accurate suppression predictions for D mesons (clear energy loss probe) at top RHIC and LHC energies. We obtain that several different ingredients are responsible for accurate predictions, i.e. robust agreement with the data is a cumulative effect of all the ingredients, though inclusion of the dynamical scattering centers has the largest relative importance.

Emission source functions in heavy ion collisions

Three-dimensional pion and kaon emission source functions are extracted from hydrokinetic model (HKM) simulations of central Au+Au collisions at the top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energy $\sqrt{{s}_{NN}}=200$ GeV. The model describes well the experimental data, previously obtained by the PHENIX and STAR collaborations using the imaging technique. In particular, the HKM reproduces the non-Gaussian heavy tails of the source function in the pair transverse momentum (out) and beam (long) directions, observed in the pion case and practically absent for kaons. The role of rescatterings and long-lived resonance decays in forming the mentioned long-range tails is investigated. The particle rescattering contribution to the out tail seems to be dominating. The model calculations also show substantial relative emission times between pions (with mean value 13 fm/$c$ in the longitudinally comoving system), including those coming from resonance decays and rescatterings. A prediction is made for the source functions in Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{{s}_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV, which are still not extracted from the measured correlation functions.

Complex deformations of Bjorken flow

Through a complex shift of the time coordinate, a modification of Bjorken flow is introduced which interpolates between a glasma-like stress tensor at forward rapidities and Bjorken-like hydrodynamics around mid-rapidity. A Landau-like full-stopping regime is found at early times and rapidities not too large. Approximate agreement with BRAHMS data on the rapidity distribution of produced particles at top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) energies can be achieved if the complex shift of the time coordinate is comparable to the inverse of the saturation scale. The form of the stress tensor follows essentially from symmetry considerations, and it can be expressed in closed form.

Collision energy dependence of viscous hydrodynamic flow in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Using a (2+1)-d viscous hydrodynamical model, we study the dependence of flow observables on the collision energy ranging from sqrt(s)=7.7 A GeV at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to sqrt(s)=2760 A GeV at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). With a realistic equation of state, Glauber model initial conditions and a small specific shear viscosity eta/s = 0.08, the differential charged hadron elliptic flow v_2^{ch}(p_T,sqrt(s)) is found to exhibit a very broad maximum as a function of sqrt(s) around top RHIC energy, rendering it almost independent of collision energy for 39 < sqrt(s) < 2760 A GeV. Compared to ideal fluid dynamical simulations, this "saturation" of elliptic flow is shifted to higher collision energies by shear viscous effects. For color-glass motivated MC-KLN initial conditions, which require a larger shear viscosity eta/s = 0.2 to reproduce the measured elliptic flow, a similar "saturation" is not observed up to LHC energies, except for very low p_T. We emphasize that this "saturation" of the elliptic flow is not associated with the QCD phase transition, but arises from the interplay between radial and elliptic flow which shifts with sqrt(s) depending on the fluid's viscosity and leads to a subtle cancellation between increasing contributions from light and decreasing contributions from heavy particles to v_2 in the sqrt(s) range where v_2^{ch}(p_T,sqrt(s)) at fixed p_T is maximal. By generalizing the definition of spatial eccentricity epsilon_x to isothermal hyper-surfaces, we calculate epsilon_x on the kinetic freeze-out surface at different collision energies. Up to top RHIC energy, sqrt(s)=200 A GeV, the fireball is still out-of-plane deformed at freeze out, while at LHC energy the final spatial eccentricity is predicted to approach zero.

Search for the critical point of the nuclear matter phase diagram. first results from the beam energy SCAN program at RHIC

Author(s): Odyniec, G | Abstract: In 2010, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) launched a multistep experimental program to investigate the QCD Phase Diagram in general, and to search for the QCD Critical Point (CP) and/or 1st order phase transition in particular. The BES (Beam Energy Scan) program involves an scan of Au+Au collisions from the top RHIC energy (ρs = 200 GeV) down to energies as low as 5 GeV in NN center of mass. During the first BES run (2010), data were collected at 7.7, 11.5 and 39 GeV. It was complemented in 2011 by two other data sets at 27 and 19.6 GeV. The preparations for the remaining data taking at ps = 5 GeV are in progress. The overview of the BES program and the first experimental results are presented and discussed.

Kaon and pion femtoscopy at the highest energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in a hydrokinetic model

The hydrokinetic approach, that incorporates hydrodynamic expansion of the systems formed in A+A collisions and their dynamical decoupling, is applied to restore the initial conditions and space-time picture of the matter evolution in central Au+Au collisions at the top RHIC energy. The analysis is based on the detailed reproduction of the pion and kaon momentum spectra and femtoscopic data in whole interval of the transverse momenta studied by both STAR and PHENIX collaborations. The fitting procedure utilizes the two parameters: the maximal energy density at supposed thermalization time 1 fm/c and the strength of the pre-thermal flows developed to this time. The quark-gluon plasma and hadronic gas is supposed to be in complete local equilibrium above the chemical freeze-out temperature $T_{ch}$ = 165 MeV with the equation of states (EoS) at high temperatures as in the lattice QCD. Below $T_{ch}$ the EoS in the expanding and gradually decoupling fluid depends on the composition of the hadron-resonance gas at each space-time point and accounts for decays of resonances into the non-equilibrated medium. A good description of the pion and kaon transverse momentum spectra and interferometry radii is reached at both used initial energy density profiles motivated by the Glauber and Color Glass Condensate (CGC) models, however, at different initial energy densities. The discussion as for the approximate pion and kaon $m_T$-scaling for the interferometry radii is based on a comparison of the emission functions for these particles.

Fluctuations of theK/πratio in nucleus-nucleus collisions: Statistical and transport models

Event-by-event fluctuations of the kaon to pion number ratio in nucleus-nucleus collisions are studied within the statistical hadron-resonance gas model (SM) for different statistical ensembles and in the hadron-string-dynamics (HSD) transport approach. We find that the HSD model can qualitatively reproduce the measured excitation function for the $K/\ensuremath{\pi}$ ratio fluctuations in central $\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}$ (or $\mathrm{Pb}+\mathrm{Pb}$) collisions from low Super Proton Synchrotron up to top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider energies. Substantial differences in the HSD and SM results are found for the fluctuations and correlations of the kaon and pion numbers. These predictions impose a challenge for future experiments.

Heavy quarks at RHIC from parton transport theory

There are several indications that an opaque partonic medium is created in energetic Au+Au collisions \sqrt{s} ~ 100 GeV/nucleon at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). At the extreme densities of ~ 10-100 times normal nuclear density reached even heavy-flavor hadrons are affected significantly. Heavy-quark observables are presented from the parton transport model MPC, focusing on the nuclear suppression pattern, azimuthal anisotropy ("elliptic flow"), and azimuthal correlations. Comparison with Au+Au data at top RHIC energy \sqrt{s} = 200 GeV indicates significant heavy quark rescattering, corresponding to roughly five times higher opacities than estimates based on leading-order perturbative QCD. We propose measurements of charm-anticharm, e.g., D-meson azimuthal correlations as a sensitive, independent probe to corroborate these findings.

Elliptic flow of ϕ mesons and strange quark collectivity

Based on a multiphase transport model, we have studied the elliptic flow ${v}_{2}$ of \ensuremath{\phi} mesons from the reconstructed ${K}^{+}{K}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ decay channel at the top Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider energy at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The dependences of ${v}_{2}$ on transverse momentum ${p}_{T}$ and collision centrality are presented and the rescattering effect of \ensuremath{\phi} mesons in the hadronic phase is also investigated. The results show that experimental measurement of ${v}_{2}$ for \ensuremath{\phi} mesons can retain the early collision information before the \ensuremath{\phi} decays and that the \ensuremath{\phi} ${v}_{2}$ value obeys the constituent quark number scaling that has been observed for other mesons and baryons. Our study indicates that the \ensuremath{\phi} ${v}_{2}$ mostly reflects partonic-level collectivity developed during the early stage of the nucleus-nucleus collision and the strange and light up/down quarks have developed similar angular anistropy properties at the hadronization.

Charm coalescence at relativistic energies

The J/psi yield at midrapidity at the top RHIC (relativistic heavy ion collider) energy is calculated within the statistical coalescence model, which assumes charmonium formation at the late stage of the reaction from the charm quarks and antiquarks created earlier in hard parton collisions. The results are compared to the new PHENIX data and to predictions of the standard models, which assume formation of charmonia exclusively at the initial stage of the reaction and their subsequent suppression. Two versions of the suppression scenario are considered. One of them assumes gradual charmonium suppression by comovers, while the other one supposes that the suppression sets in abruptly due to quark-gluon plasma formation. Surprisingly, both versions give very similar results. In contrast, the statistical coalescence model predicts a few times larger $J/\psi$ yield in the most central collisions.