Strangeness enhancement and energy dependence in heavy ion collisions

The canonical statistical model analysis of strange and multistrange hadron production in central A–A relative to p–p/p–A collisions is presented over the energy range from GeV up to GeV. It is shown that the relative enhancement of strange particle yields from p–p/p–A to A–A collisions substantially increases with decreasing collision energy. It is largest at GeV, where the enhancement of and is of the order of 100, 20 and 3, respectively. In terms of the model these results are due to the canonical suppression of particle thermal phase space at lower energies, which increases with the strangeness content of the particle and with decreasing size of the collision fireball. The comparison of the model with existing data on the energy dependence of the kaon/pion ratio is also discussed. Received: 25 October 2001 / Published online: 5 July 2002     

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     

Chemical thermalization in relativistic heavy ion collisions

We compute by numerical integration of the Dirac equation the number of quark-antiquark pairs initially produced in the classical color fields of colliding ultrarelativistic nuclei. While the number of pairs is parametrically suppressed in the coupling constant, we find that in this classical field model their production rate is comparable to the thermal ratio of gluons/pairs=9Nf/32. After isotropization one thus would have a quark-gluon plasma in chemical equilibrium.     

System size in relativistic heavy ion collisions

System size is more than a geometrical quantity in relativistic heavy ion collisions; it is closely related to evolution process,i.e.a different system size corresponds to a different evolution process,and whether QGP is produced depends on the system size.We propose that the system size should be under the same level when comparing the measurements from different colliding nuclei.The equivalence of the peripheral collisions of Au-Au and the central collisions of smaller nuclei is studied using the Monte Carlo method.Comparing the transverse overlapping area of the colliding nuclei,the number of participant nucleons and the number of nucleon-nucleon binary collisions in various colliding nuclei,we give an estimate of the correspondence in system size.This is helpful in the experimental comparison of the measurements from different colliding nuclei.     

Electromagnetic processes in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Electromagnetic effects in relativistic heavy ion collisions with impact parameter larger than the sum of the nuclear radii are studied using the virtual photon method. With increasing value of the relativistic parameter γ the hardness of the virtual photon spectrum increases. This leads to interesting new effects which will also have to be considered in the design of future relativistic heavy ion machines and experiments. The excitation of high-lying giant E1 and E2 multipole resonances is calculated as well as electromagnetic pion production. Coulomb bremsstrahlung is calculated and compared to the bremsstrahlung emitted in the more violent central nuclear collisions. K-shell ionization and electron-positron pair production is studied. The latter process has a very large cross section for heavy ions and contributes significantly to the stopping power of relativistic heavy ions in a dense medium.     

Nuclear disintegration in relativistic heavy ion collisions

The breakdown of the participant spectator model for central relativistic nuclear collisions is discussed and a different picture of a hot spot followed by a target explosion is suggested to be more consistent with the data.     

Four-fermion interaction in relativistic heavy ion collisions

A (nearly) perfect liquid discovered in experiments with ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is investigated by studying the quark ensembles with four-fermion interaction considered as a fundamental theoretical approach. A comparative analysis of several quantum liquid models is performed, allowing one to conclude that the presence of gas-liquid phase transition is a characteristic feature of those models. The problem of the instability of the quark droplets with the small number of quarks, related with a possible formation of a chiral soliton, is discussed. A mixed phase of vacuum and baryon matter, as a possible scenario of its stability, is studied. Some aspects of the color superconductivity are considered. In addition, a recently proposed nontrivial thermodynamic state, called the fermion condensate, is studied. An analysis of unexpected opportunity to link the bare and effective coupling constants is performed within the framework of a simple model. It is pointed out that a simple subtraction procedure leads to the finite result without a typical logarithmic singularity for the observed coupling constant as a function of the transferred energy.     

System size in relativistic heavy ion collisions

System size is more than a geometrical quantity in relativistic heavy ion collisions; it is closely related to evolution process, i.e. a different system size corresponds to a different evolution process, and whether QGP is produced depends on the system size. We propose that the system size should be under the same level when comparing the measurements from different colliding nuclei. The equivalence of the peripheral collisions of Au-Au and the central collisions of smaller nuclei is studied using the Monte Carlo method. Comparing the transverse overlapping area of the colliding nuclei, the number of participant nucleons and the number of nucleon-nucleon binary collisions in various colliding nuclei, we give an estimate of the correspondence in system size. This is helpful in the experimental comparison of the measurements from different colliding nuclei.     

Neutral meson production in relativistic heavy ion collisions

The production of ⁰ and mesons has been studied in the reactions²⁰Ne +Al at 350 MeV/u and⁴⁰Ar + Ca at 1.0 GeV/u. Rapidity distributions and transverse momentum spectra have been measured and are compared to thermal distributions.Dedicated to Prof. Dr. P. Kienle on the occasion of his 60th birthday     

Composite particle emission in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Inclusive spectra of d, t, and ³He have been measured over a wide range of fragment angles and energies. The observed spectra are well reproduced by the “coalescence model” with a coalescence radius p₀ which is independent of beam energies and which decreases as the sizes of the target-projectile combinations increase. The sizes of the interaction regions have been derived from these p₀ values. The experimental cross sections generally deviate from predictions of the firestreak model.     

Freeze-out in relativistic heavy ion collisions at SPS

The freeze-out conditions in the light (S+S) and heavy (Pb+Pb) colliding systems at 160 AGeV/c are analyzed within the microscopic Quark Gluon String Model (QGSM). Even for the most heavy systems particle emission takes place from the whole space-time domain available for the system evolution, but not from the thin “freeze-out hypersurface”, adopted in fluid dynamical models. Pions are continuously emitted from the whole volume of the reaction and reflect the main trends of the system evolution. Nucleons in Pb+Pb collisions initially come from the surface region. For both reactions there is a separation of the elastic and inelastic freeze-out.     

High energy heavy ion collisions: Lessons from relativistic heavy ion collider

In this talk, I review the recent results from RHIC and discuss their significance.     

The thermodynamic model for relativistic heavy ion collisions

The collision between two heavy ions at high energies is discussed within the framework of a statistical model which is developed step by step so that it can be followed by a reader unfamiliar with this approach. As we hope to show, the statistical model forms a comprehensive framework for investigating various aspects of such collisions. When statistical thermodynamics is coupled with a one and two fireball model or a firestreak model, single particle and multiparticle inclusive cross sections can be evaluated. Specifically, single particle proton, deuteron, triton and pion cross sections are calculated and compared with experiment. Two particle correlations are discussed using the microcanonical ensemble. Multiplicity distributions are evaluated using the canonical ensemble and composite particle formation is simply obtained from the grand canonical ensemble. The power law behaviour of composite particle cross sections is studied. The thermodynamic model is justified by calculating various reaction rates. Many comparisons with experimental data are made.     

BRAHMS collaboration results for relativistic heavy ion collisions

In this work we review very briefly a few of the most important results obtained by the BRAHMS Collaboration on the properties of the collisions of heavy ions at relativistic energies. The discussion is general and aims to illustrate the most important achievements of our collaboration during the RHIC run period with short discussions and references to articles that treat the subjects in more detail. The text was submitted by the author in English.     

Mean field model for relativistic heavy ion collisions

We take up a relativistic mean-field model consisting out of nucleons coupled to a scalar and a vector meson. We solve the corresponding time-dependent mean-field equations on a three-dimensional grid. Results for¹⁶O +¹⁶O scattering at various energies and various impact parameters show significant differences with conventional TDHF calculations. We see sidewards collective flow similar as in fluid dynamics and in experiment. We observe complete spallation and remarked oscillations of the meson fields.     

Hard thermal photon production in relativistic heavy ion collisions

The recent status of hard thermal photon production in relativistic heavy ion collisions is reviewed and the current rates are presented with emphasis on corrected bremsstrahlung processes in the quark–gluon plasma (QGP) and quark–hadron duality. Employing Bjorken hydrodynamics with an EOS supporting the phase transition from QGP to hot hadron gas (HHG), thermal photon spectra are computed. For SPS 158 GeV Pb + Pb collisions, comparison with other theoretical results and the WA98 direct photon data indicates significant contributions due to prompt photons. Extrapolating the presented approach to RHIC and LHC experiments, predictions of the thermal photon spectrum show a QGP outshining the HHG in the high-p_T-region.     

Noncommutativity and Lorentz violation in relativistic heavy ion collisions

We show that relativistic heavy ion collisions at LHC energies could be used as an experimental probe to detect fundamental properties of spacetime long speculated about. Our results rely on the recent proposal that magnetic fields of intensity much larger than that of magnetars should be produced at the beginning of the collisions and this could have an important impact on the experimental manifestation of a noncommutative spacetime. Indeed, in the noncommutative generalization of electrodynamics the interplay between a nonzero noncommutative parameter and an external magnetic field leads us to predict the production of lepton pairs of low invariant mass by free photons (an event forbidden by Lorentz invariant electrodynamics) in relativistic heavy ion collisions at present and future available energies. This unique channel can be clearly considered as a signature of noncommutativity. On the other hand, the search for such decays is worth anyway because their absence would ameliorate of three orders of magnitude the current bound on the noncommutative parameter.     

Low mass dilepton production in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Mechanisms of formation for low mass dilepton excess observed in the relativistic heavy ion collisions are considered. The experimental data are reviewed. In addition to discussing the standard mechanisms of dilepton production specific to the collisions of relativistic nuclei (the pion annihilation in the hadron-gas stage and the quark-antiquark annihilation in the quark-gluon phase), the mechanism of dilepton production in the mixed phase of nuclear matter is proposed, and its contribution to the low mass dilepton spectrum is estimated. In addition, the first-order corrections in the strong-interaction coupling constant to the dilepton production in the parton medium and the nonperturbative approaches are considered.