Direct hadron production in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions

Hadrons emitted by the pre-surface layer of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) before the phase transition into a hadronic gas are considered as possible sources of direct information about QGP. It is shown that if QGP is created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions, then these hadrons strongly contribute at soft p_t at SpS energy and dominate up to an order of magnitude at LHC energy.     

Scaling of hadron production bypp,p-nucleus and heavy-ion collisions

The rest-frame of secondaries frompp collisions determined by the covariant Boltzmann factor is found to be independent of the massm of the secondary. In this frame, the hadron production behaves like bremsstrahlung:n(m)～W ^* (m)/m ²,W ^* (m) being the available energy. This multiplicity law fitsp+p→m+? at 400 GeV/c of NA 27 Collaboration without free-parameters. Extended top-nucleus and heavy-ion collisions, assuming a mean-free-path of collision between the incident and the target nucleon to be ～2.80 fm and 1.63 fm respectively, it accounts forn(K ^?) and \(n(\bar \Lambda )\) of CERN-SPS experiments and theK ^?/π^? ratio of BNL experiments.     

Production of hadron resonances in heavy-ion collisions

The role of microscopic kinetics in the production of short-lived (broad) hadron resonances from subhadronic nuclear matter is considered. Anew approach to calculating the multiplicity of broad meson resonances is proposed. This approach takes explicitly into account the possibility that massive constituent quarks play a decisive role at the last stage of the expansion and cooling of matter produced in the central collisions of relativistic heavy nuclei. The resulting theoretical estimates are comparedwith available experimental data, and some quantitative and qualitative predictions are made.     

High-p T direct photon production inpp collisions

Direct photon and neutral-pion production have been measured inpp collisions at the CERN ISR for 30< \(\sqrt s \) <63 GeV and transverse momenta up to 12 GeV/c. The direct photon signal relative to neutral-pion production increases withp _T and shows little \(\sqrt s \) -dependence. Results are reported from a variety of running conditions, and details are given on the method of analysis and on the evaluation of systematic errors for the inclusive cross-section of single-photon and neutral-pion production.     

Re-hardening of hadron transverse mass spectra in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We analyze the spectra of pions and protons in heavy-ion collisions at relativistic energies from 2 A GeV to 65+65 A GeV by using a jet-implemented hadron-string cascade model. In this energy region, hadron transverse mass spectra first show softening until SPS energies, and re-hardening may emerge at RHIC energies. Since hadronic matter is expected to show only softening at higher energy densities, this re-hardening of spectra can be interpreted as a good signature of the quark-gluon plasma formation     

Multi-jet production in hadron collisions

The advent of high-energy hadron colliders necessitates efficient and accurate computation of multi-jet production processes, both as QCD processes in their own right and as backgrounds for other physics. The algorithm that performs these tasks and a brief numerical study of multi-jet processes are presented. Received: 21 February 2002 / Published online: 22 May 2002     

Identified hadron production in √s = 130 GeV Au-Au collisions at relativistic heavy-ion collider

Identified π^±,K ^±, p and -p transverse momentum spectra at mid-rapidity in √^sNN = 130 GeV Au-Au collisions were measured by the PHENIX experiment at RHIC as a function of collision centrality. Average transverse momenta increase with the number of participating nucleonsN _part similarly for all particle species. The multiplicity densities scale faster thanN _part. TheK ^± andp ^±yields per participant increase faster than the π^± yields. We combine the PHENIX neutral and charged pion measurement and find that in central collisions forp _T >-2 GeV/c,-p andp yields are comparable to or even exceed the pion yields.     

Charmonium-state production in heavy-ion collisions

An overview of existing experimental data on the production of charmonium states (J/ψ and ψ′) at the superproton synchrotron (SPS, CERN) and the relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC, Brookhaven National Laboratory, United States) is given. The production of J/ψ mesons shows an anomalous suppression discovered by the NA50 Collaboration (CERN) in collisions of lead nuclei at an energy of 158 GeV per nucleon and confirmed in the NA60 experiment (CERN) in collisions of indium nuclei at the same energy. The suppression of J/ψ production depends on interaction centrality and becomes anomalous at about 122 participant nucleons in PbPb collisions and at about 86 participant nucleons in InIn collisions. The experimental data in question are compared with the predictions of existing theoretical models. None of the models is able to simultaneously describe data on PbPb and InIn collisions. Data obtained in the PHENIX experiment at RHIC from measurements of J/ψ production in AuAu and CuCu collisions at an energy of 200 GeV (in the nucleon-nucleon c.m. frame) indicate that the suppression of J/ψ production at such energies approximately corresponds to the suppression of J/ψ production in PbPb collisions at SPS. Theoretical models that describe SPS data on PbPb collisions predict a stronger suppression of J/ψ production. Models that take into account J/ψ-meson regeneration better describe experimental data obtained at RHIC. Measurement of cross sections for charmonium and bottomonium production at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC, CERN) would make it possible to study the properties of matter and to explore the mechanism of quarkonium production at ultrahigh energy densities and temperature and high transverse momenta, as well as to investigate the effect of the regeneration and suppression of quarkonium production as the energy increases.     

Thermal hadron production in Si-Au collisions

The most abundantly produced hadron species in Si - Au collisions at the BNL-AGS (nucleons, pions, kaons, antikaons and hyperons) are shown to be in accord with emission from a thermal resonance gas source. Within the uncertainties of the present data, two freeze-out points are possible. The best agreement is obtained for a temperature T ? 110 MeV and a baryochemical potential μ_B ? 540 MeV, corresponding to about 1/3 standard nuclear density. Another possible point lies at about twice nuclear density, with T ? 160 MeV and μ_B ? 620 MeV. Our analysis takes the isopin asymmetry of the initial state fully into account.     

Scaling of hadron masses and widths in thermal models for ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions

By means of a simple rescaling, modifications of hadron masses and widths are incorporated into the thermal analysis of particle ratios in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We find that moderate, up to 20%, changes of hadron masses do not spoil the quality of the fits, which remain as good as those obtained without modifications. Larger changes are not likely. The fits with the modified masses yield modified values of the optimal temperature and baryon chemical potential. In particular, with decreasing masses of all hadrons (except for pseudo-Goldstone bosons) the fitted values of the temperature and the baryon chemical potential are lowered, with the change approximately proportional to the scaling of masses. In addition, we find that the broadening of the hadron widths by less than a factor of two practically does not affect the fits.     

Strangeness production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Kaon production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is studied. Particular attention is paid to situations in which high densities are obtained, such as in the Brookhaven AGS experiments with 14.6 GeV/nucleon Si on Au. Because of the explicit chiral-symmetry breaking terms in chiral Langrangians, kaons acquire an effective mass m _K ^* which goes to zero at the critical baryon density. Well before such densities, m _K ^* is sufficiently reduced to greatly facilitate kaon production through processes like K¯K. Previous expressions for the decreasing kaon mass were arrived at by linear chiral perturbation theory. Whereas we cannot systematically proceed to higher order, we use physical models to suggest how relevant quantities will behave in higher order. We present arguments that m _K ^* effectively goes to zero in the present AGS experiments.Supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy Grant No. DE-FG02-88ER40388     

Saturation of transverse energy per charged hadron and freeze-out criteria in heavy-ion collisions

The effective (non-universal) nature of Sivers function reflects the process dependence of the imaginary phase required for T-odd Single Spin asymmetry. The explicit account for the phase allows to relate T-odd and T-even Spin asymmetries. The soft-gluon twist 3 contributions to single-spin asymmetries (SSA) in hard processes may be expressed in the form of effective T-odd Sivers distributions, whose signs and scales are modified by process-dependent colour factors. The Sivers mechanism is applied at large transverse momenta and the emission of balancing gluons provide the colour flow explaining this factor.     

Heavy particle production in high-energy hadron collisions

We consider the problem of how to compute the cross section for producing heavy strongly interacting particles (quarks, gluinos, squarks …) in high-energy hadron collisions, supposing that the heavy particle masses are large compared to 1 GeV. We use heavy quark production as an example. We consider several low-order graphs in the kinematic region expected to produce the bulk of the total production cross section. Based on the structure of the low-order graphs, we argue that the cross section can be reliably computed in QCD by using the same factorization formula that is used for jet production and W and Z production, but inserting the appropriate parton level cross sections for the heavy particle production. We emphasize that an analysis at all orders of perturbation theory is needed to reliably establish this conjecture.     

Glueball plus pion production in hadron collisions

Using a non-relativistic gluon bound-state model for glueballs (G), we compute the subprocess $q\bar q \to G\pi $ , and we therefrom derive the yield of the overall reaction $p\bar p \to G\pi X$ , assuming the glueball and the pion to be emitted with their transverse momenta large, opposite and approximately equal. Numerical results are presented in the form ofp _T spectra for various glueball candidates and their possible quantum states, assuming those particles to be produced, in the type of reactions here considered, at high-energy $p\bar p$ colliders such as the CERN $Sp\bar pS$ .     

Pair production of charged Higgs particles through two-photon process inpp collisions

In order to obtain model-independent estimates for the production of charged Higgs particles atpp colliders, in particular at the SSC, we investigate their pair production through electromagnetic processes. It turns out that the dominant contribution comes from photon-photon annihilation. For a Higgs mass of a few hundred GeV the two-photon process is thus an appropriate candidate to look for charged Higgs particles.