Dilepton production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at SPS energies

Dilepton production in proton- and nucleus-induced reactions is studied in the relativistic transport model using initial conditions determined by the string dynamics from RQMD. It is found that both the CERES and HELIOS-3 data for dilepton spectra in proton-nucleus reactions can be well described by the ‘conventional’ mechanism of Dalitz decay and direct vector meson decay. However, to provide a quantitative explanation of the observed dilepton spectra in central S+Au and S+W collisions requires contributions other than these direct decays. Introducing a decrease of vector meson masses in hot and dense medium, we find that these heavy-ion data can also be satisfactorily explained. This agrees with our earlier conclusions based on a fire-cylinder model. We also give predictions for Pb+Au collisions at 160 GeV/nucleon using current CERES mass resolution and acceptance.     

Radial, sideward and elliptic flow at AGS energies

We study the baryon transverse in-plane (sideward) and elliptic flow from SIS to AGS energies for AuAu collisions in a relativistic dynamical simulation model that includes all baryon resonances up to a mass of 2 GeV as well as string degrees of freedom for the higher mass continuum. There are two factors which dominantly determine the baryon flow at these energies: the momentum dependence of the scalar and vector potentials and the resonance-string degrees of freedom. We fix the explicit momentum dependence of the nucleon-meson couplings of NL3(hard) equation of state (EoS) by the nucleon optical potential up to 1 GeV of kinetic energy. We simultaneously reproduce the sideward flow, the elliptic flow and the radial transverse mass distribution of protons data at AGS energies. In order to study the sensitivity of different mean-field EoS, we use NL2(soft) and NL23(medium) along with NL3(hard) momenta-dependent mean-field EoS. We find that to describe data on both sideward and elliptic flow, NL3 model is better at 2 A·GeV, while NL23 model is at 4–8 A·GeV.     

Feasibility study of heavy ion physics program at NICA

There are strong experimental and theoretical evidences that in collisions of heavy ions at relativistic energies nuclear matter undergoes a phase transition to the deconfined state—Quark Gluon Plasma. The caused energy region of such transition was not found at high energy at SPS and RHIC and search for this energy is shifted to lower energies, which will be covered by the future NICA (Dubna), FAIR (Darmstadt) facilities and BES II at RHIC. Fixed target and collider experiments at the NICA facility will work at the energy range from a few AGeV up to \(\sqrt {\;{S_{NN}}} \; = \;11\;GeV\) GeV and will study the most interesting area on the nuclear matter phase diagram. The most remarkable results were observed in the study of collective phenomena occurring in the early stage of nuclear collisions. Investigation of the collective flow will provide information on Equation of State (EoS) for nuclear matter. Study of the Event-by-Event fluctuations and correlations can give us signals of critical behavior of the system. Femtoscopy analysis provides the space-time history of the collisions. Also, it was found that baryon stopping power revealing itself as a “wiggle” in excitation function of curvature of the (net)proton rapidity spectrum relates to the order of the phase transition. The available observations of an enhancement of dilepton rates at low invariant masses may serve as a signal of the chiral symmetry restoration in hot and dense matter. Due to this fact, measurements of the dilepton spectra are considered to be an important part of the NICA physics program. The study of strange particles and hypernuclei production gives additional information on the EoS and “strange” axis of the QCD phase diagram. In this paper a feasibility of the considered investigations is shown by the detailed Monte Carlo simulations applied to the planned experiments (BM@N, MPD) at NICA.     

Medium effects in the production and decay of vector mesons in pion-nucleus reactions

The ω-, ϱ-, and φ-resonance production and their dileptonic decay in π⁻ A reactions at 1.1–1.7 GeV/c are calculated within the intranuclear cascade (INC) approach. The invariant mass distribution of the dilepton pair for each resonance can be decomposed in two components which correspond to their decay “inside” the target nucleus and in the vacuum, respectively. The first components are strongly distorted by the nuclear medium due to resonance-nucleon scattering and a possible mass shift at finite baryon density. These medium modifications are compared to background sources in the dilepton spectrum from πN bremsstrahlung as well as the Dalitz decays of ω and η mesons produced in the reaction. Detailed predictions for π⁻Pb reactions at 1.3 and 1.7 GeV/c are made within several momentum bins for the lepton pair.     

Mass determination of new states at hadron colliders

We propose an improved method for hadron-collider mass determination of new states that decay to a massive, long-lived state like the LSP in the MSSM. We focus on pair-produced new states which undergo three-body decay to a pair of visible particles and the new invisible long-lived state. Our approach is to construct a kinematic quantity which enforces all known physical constraints on the system. The distribution of this quantity calculated for the observed events has an endpoint that determines the mass of the new states. However we find it much more efficient to determine the masses by fitting to the entire distribution and not just the end point. We consider the application of the method at the LHC for various models and demonstrate that the method can determine the masses within about 6 GeV using only 250 events. This implies the method is viable even for relatively rare processes at the LHC such as neutralino pair production.     

D and D meson production near 4 GeV in e+e− annihilation

We have studied momentum spectra for D⁰ ($\text{D}$⁰) and D^± mesons produced near 4 GeV in e⁺e^? annihilation and find that production is dominated by two-body reactions involving D and D¹ states where the D¹ (charged and neutral) have masses near 2.01 GeV/c². A detailed study of D momentum spectra near E_cm = 4.028 GeV allows determination of masses and branching ratios of D and D¹ states. Lastly we find that events containing a D⁰ meson conserve strangeness, thus establishing upper limits on D⁰-$\text{D}$⁰ mixing and on the effects of charm changing neutral currents.     

Perturbative QCD and weak asymmetries in lepton pair production

The interference of electromagnetic and weak production mechanisms for lepton pair production may give rise to several effects which violate parity and charge symmetry. These effects are generally of the order of 1% for dilepton masses of 10 GeV. The theoretical calculations presented here show that experimental studies of these asymmetries may be useful. In particular, measurements of these asymmetries in collisions of pions with polarized protons may lead to a greatly enhanced understanding of the polarization distribution of quarks in a polarized proton. The polarization structure of the d quark is shown to be of special interest. Measurement of the parity-violating asymmetries in proton-polarized proton collisions may prove to be a sensitive probe of the flavor symmetry of the proton antiquark sea. Analysis of the parity conserving charge asymmetry (which is predicted to occur in collisions of unpolarized hadrons) allows a unique further test of the Drell-Yan model for lepton pair production, as well as of our understanding of weak interactions.The above asymmetries mentioned are computed within the framework of the parton model. The focus of this work is on the asymmetries calculated with the inclusion of first-order perturbative QCD effects. The asymmetries are calculated in a differential form for values of the dilepton transverse momentum large compared with the typical (～1 GeV) scale of nonperturbative effects, and also in a form in which this transverse momentum has been integrated over. Corrections to the parton model results, which can be large, show rather different structure for the various asymmetries.A parity-violating asymmetry which may occur in collisions of unpolarized hadrons is also discussed. This asymmetry is very sensitive to the nonperturbative structure of hadrons, and is estimated to be approximately 0.01% for dilepton masses of 10 GeV.     

Calculation of thermodynamic properties of Ni nanoclusters via selected equations of state based on molecular dynamics simulations

We present an approach for constant-pressure molecular dynamics simulations. This approach is especially designed for finite systems, for which no periodic boundary condition applies. A molecular dynamics (MD) simulation for Ni nanoclusters is used to calculate their pressure–volume–temperature (p–v–T) data for the temperature range 200 K≤T≤400 K, and pressures up to 600 kbar. Isothermal sets of p–v–T data were generated by the simulation; each set was fitted by three equations of state (EoSs): Linear Isotherm Regularity-II (LIRII), Birch–Murnaghan (BM), and EOS III. It is found that the MD data are satisfactorily reproduced by the EoSs with reasonable precision. Some features of the EoSs criteria, such as the temperature dependences of the coefficients, the isothermal bulk modulus and its pressure derivative at the zero-pressure limit, and isobaric thermal expansion for Ni nanoclusters, are investigated. We have found that same EoSs are valid for both bulk Ni and Ni nanoclusters, but with different values of the parameters, which depend on the cluster size and temperature. An increase in bulk modulus with decrease of cluster size can be observed. Also, an increase in isobaric expansion coefficient with decrease of cluster size has been found.     

Directed flow of baryons from high-energy heavy-ion collisions

The collective motion of nucleons from high-energy heavy-ion collisions is analyzed within a relativistic two-fluid model for different equations of state (EoS). As function of beam energy the theoretical slope parameter F _y of the differential directed flow is in good agreement with experimental data, when calculated for the QCD-consistent EoS described by the statistical mixed-phase model. Within this model, which takes the deconfinement phase transition into account, the excitation function of the directed flow (P _x ) turns out to be a smooth function in the whole range from SIS till SPS energies. This function is close to that for pure hadronic EoS and exhibits no minimum predicted earlier for a two-phase bag-model EoS. Attention is also called to a possible formation of nucleon antiflow (F _y < 0) at energies ? 100 A·GeV.     

Indications for the onset of deconfinement in Pb+Pb collisions at the CERN SPS

Particle production in central Pb+Pb collisions was studied with the NA49 large acceptance spectrometer at the CERN SPS at beam energies of 20, 30, 40, 80 and 158 GeV per nucleon. A change of the energy dependence is observed around 30A GeV for the yields of pions and strange particles as well as for the shapes of the transverse mass spectra. The energy dependence of fluctuations and correlations shows no structure. At present only a reaction scenario with onset of deconfinement is able to reproduce the measurements.     

Dilepton from Passage of Jets Through Spherical Expanding QGP

We calculate the large mass dileptons production from the jet-dilepton conversion in spherical expanding quark-gluon plasma at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider(RHIC) and Large Hadron Collider(LHC) energies.The jetdilepton production exceeds the thermal and Drell Yan dilepton production in the large mass region of 4.5 GeVM 5.5 GeV and 7 GeV M 9 GeV in central Pb+Pb collisions at SNNS~(1/2)=2.76 TeV and 5.5 TeV,respectively.We present the solution of(1+3)-dimensional fluid hydrodynamics with spherical symmetry.We find that the transverse flow of the QGP leads to a rapid cooling of the fire ball and suppression of the jet-dilepton conversion.The suppression is also evident at intermediate and large mass at LHC energies.The energy loss of the jet-dilepton conversion is concerned.     

A non-plasma approach to the soft dilepton production inhA andAA collisions

We propose a method of evaluating the soft dilepton production rate in hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at high energies based on summing the contributions from quark-antiquark systems (chains) created in individual hadron-nucleon interactions. The individual contributions are determined by using the square dependence of the soft dilepton production rate on hadron multiplicity predicted for hadron-hadron collisions by the soft-quarkannihilation model and observed recently inpp collisions at the CERN ISR. The possibility of additional contributions originating from the annihilation of quarks and antiquarks that belong to different chains is taken into account in a phenomenological way, which nevertheless enables to correlate different phenomena in soft dilepton production. More detailed predictions are given for proton-nucleus collisions at 200 GeV/c.     

Dilepton from Passage of Jets Through Spherical Expanding QGP

We calculate the large mass dileptons production from the jet-dilepton conversion in spherical expanding quark-gluon plasma at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) energies. The jet-dilepton production exceeds the thermal and Drell-Yan dilepton production in the large mass region of 4.5 GeV< M< 5.5 GeV and 7 GeV< M< 9 GeV in central Pb+Pb collisions at √s_NN=2.76 TeV and 5.5 TeV, respectively. We present the solution of (1+3)-dimensional fluid hydrodynamics with spherical symmetry. We find that the transverse flow of the QGP leads to a rapid cooling of the fire ball and suppression of the jet-dilepton conversion. The suppression is also evident at intermediate and large mass at LHC energies. The energy loss of the jet-dilepton conversion is concerned.     

Inclusive processes and shadow effects in deuteron

Using the data on inclusive spectra we analyze the contribution of inelastic intermediate states to the shadow correction Δ for high-energy (E > 10 GeV) hadron-deuteron scattering. We note that the intermediate states with large masses M² ～ ER^?1 may contribute appreciably to the shadow correction, but the estimate of this contribution in the framework of the Regge-pole model for inclusive processes shows that it is small. The main contribution to the Δ is due to the small masses M < 2 GeV, which are produced by diffraction dissociation. We calculate the value Δ_inel for pd, πd and Kd scattering and estimate the energy dependence of Δ. The results are in agreement with the existing experimental data.     

Matter radii and wave function admixtures in 2n halo nuclei

We analyze longitudinal pion spectra from $\ensuremath \sqrt{s_{NN}}=2$ GeV to $\ensuremath \sqrt{s_{NN}}=20$ GeV within Landau??s hydrodynamical model and the UrQMD hybrid approach. From the measured data on the widths of the pion rapidity spectra, we extract the sound velocity c _s ² in the dense stage of the reactions. It is found that the sound velocity has a local minimum (indicating the softest point in the equation of state, EoS) at $\ensuremath \sqrt{s_{NN}}=4\mbox{--}9$ GeV, an energy range accessible at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) as well as the RHIC-Beam Energy Scan (RHIC-BES). This softening of the EoS is compatible with the formation of a QGP at the onset of deconfinement. The extracted sound velocities are then used to calculate an excitation function for the mean transverse mass of pions from the hybrid model. We find that, above $\ensuremath \sqrt{s_{NN}} \approx 10$ GeV, even the lowest c _s ² gives a considerably larger $\ensuremath \langle m_T\rangle$ of pions compared to data.     

Dile pton production in p+ p,Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV

We study dilepton production in proton–proton, Cu+Cu as well as in Au+Au collisions at the center-of-mass energy \(\sqrt{s} =200\) GeV per participating nucleon pair within an extended statistical hadronization model. In extension to earlier studies we incorporate transport calculations for an estimate of uncorrelated e ⁺ e ^? -pairs from semileptonic D meson decays. While the invariant mass spectrum of dielectrons is well understood in the p+p collisions, severe discrepancies among different model scenarios based on hadronic degrees of freedom and recent data from the PHENIX Collaboration are found in heavy-ion collisions in the low-mass region from 0.15 to 0.6 GeV as well as in the intermediate mass regime from 1.1 to 3 GeV when employing the standard dilepton sources. We investigate, furthermore, the background from correlated dileptons that are not emitted as a pair from a parent hadron but emerge from semileptonic decays of two correlated daughter hadrons. Our calculations suggest a sizeable contribution of such sources in central heavy-ion collisions in the low-mass region. However, even the upper limits of our calculations are found to be far below the dilepton mass spectra of the PHENIX Collaboration.     

Strangelet search and particle production studies in Pb+Pb collisions at 158 AGeV/c at CERN SPS

We searched for long-lived strange quark matter particles, so-calledstrangelets, and studied particle and antiparticle production in Pb+Pb collisions at 158 GeV/c per nucleon at zero degree production angle. We give upper limits for the production of strangelets covering a mass to charge ratio up to 120 GeV/c ² and lifetimest _lab>1.2 μs and plot invariant differential production cross sections as a function of rapidity for a variety of particles.