Effects of jet quenching on the hydrodynamical evolution of quark-gluon plasma

We study the effects of jet quenching on the hydrodynamical evolution of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) fluid created in a heavy-ion collision. In jet quenching, a hard QCD parton, before fragmenting into a jet of hadrons, deposits a fraction of its energy in the medium, leading to suppressed production of high-pT hadrons. Assuming that the deposited energy quickly thermalizes, we simulate the subsequent hydrodynamic evolution of the QGP fluid. For partons moving at supersonic speed, vp>cs, and sufficiently large energy loss, a shock wave forms leading to conical flow. The PHENIX Collaboration recently suggested that observed structures in the azimuthal angle distribution might be caused by conical flow. We show here that, for phenomenologically acceptable values of parton energy loss, conical flow effects are too weak to explain these structures.     

Influence of shear viscosity of quark-gluon plasma on elliptic flow in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions

We investigate the influence of a temperature-dependent shear viscosity over entropy density ratio η/s on the transverse momentum spectra and elliptic flow of hadrons in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We find that the elliptic flow in √S(NN)=200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC is dominated by the viscosity in the hadronic phase and in the phase transition region, but largely insensitive to the viscosity of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). At the highest LHC energy, the elliptic flow becomes sensitive to the QGP viscosity and insensitive to the hadronic viscosity.     

Anomalous viscosity of an expanding quark-gluon plasma

We argue that an expanding quark-gluon plasma has an anomalous viscosity, which arises from interactions with dynamically generated color fields. We derive an expression for the anomalous viscosity in the turbulent plasma domain and apply it to the hydrodynamic expansion phase, when the quark-gluon plasma is near equilibrium. The anomalous viscosity dominates over the collisional viscosity for weak coupling and not too late times. This effect may provide an explanation for the apparent "nearly perfect" liquidity of the matter produced in nuclear collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider without the assumption that it is a strongly coupled state.     

Tagged jets and jet reconstruction as a probe of the quark-gluon plasma

The large center-of-mass energies available to the heavy-ion program at the LHC and recent experimental advances at RHIC will enable QCD matter at very high temperatures and energy densities, that is, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), to be probed in unprecedented ways. Fully-reconstructed inclusive jets and the away-side hadron showers associated with electroweak bosons, that is, tagged jets, are among these exciting new probes. Full jet reconstruction provides an experimental window into the mechanisms of quark and gluon dynamics in the QGP which is not accessible via leading particles and leading particle correlations. Theoretical advances in these exciting new fields of research can help resolve some of the most controversial points in heavy ion physics today such as the significance of the radiative, collisional and dissociative processes in the QGP and the applicability of strong versus weak coupling regimes to describe jet production and propagation. In this proceedings, I will present results on the production and subsequent suppression of high energy jets tagged with Z bosons in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies using the Gyulassy-Levai-Vitev (GLV) parton energy loss approach.     

Oscillations of quark-gluon plasma generated in strong color fields

The Boltzmann-Vlasov equations for a boost-invariant quark-gluon plasma are solved in the abelian-dominance approximation. The results describe the formation of quark-gluon plasma in high-energy collision of heavy ions. It is found that, for realistic chromoelectric fields, high densities of energy of quarks and gluons are reached at the formation time of a fraction of a Fermi. The system oscillates around the Bjorken solution as found in earlier studies.     

On the shear viscosity of a strongly coupled one-component plasma

It is shown on the basis of a microscopic theory that the shear viscosity of a one-component plasma exhibits a minimum as a function of temperature.     

Bulk viscosity of quark-gluon matter in a magnetic field

On the basis of low-energy QCD theorems, the bulk viscosity ζ(T, µ, H) is expressed in terms of basic thermodynamic quantities that characterizes quark-gluon matter at finite temperature and a finite baryon density in a magnetic field. Various limiting cases are considered.     

The hadronisation of a quark-gluon plasma

We consider two scenarios for the expansion of a quark-gluon plasma. If the evolution is slow enough, the system can remain in equilibrium throughout its entire history up to the freeze-out of a hadron gas; for a very rapid expansion, it may break up into hadrons before or at the confinement transition, without ever going through an equilibrium hadron phase. We compare hadron production rates in the two approaches and show that for a hadronisation temperatureT?200 MeV and baryonic chemical potential μ _B ?500 MeV, their predictions essentially coincide. Present data on strange particle production lead to values in this range and hence cannot provide a distinction between the two scenarios. Pion, nucleon and non-strange meson production seem to require a considerably lower freeze-out temperature and baryonic chemical potential. In the hadron gas picture, this is in accord with the difference in mean free path of the different hadrons in the medium; it suggests a sequential freeze-out, in which strange hadrons stop interacting earlier than non-strange hadrons. In the quark-gluon plasma break-up, the hadronic final state fails to provide the high entropy per baryon observed in non-strange hadron production. The break-up moreover leads to a decrease of the entropy per baryon; hence it must be conceptually modified before it can be considered as a viable hadronisation mechanism.     

Three-particle interactions in a quark-gluon plasma

We explore the influence of three-particle interactions, in either the initial or final state, on the collision rate in a high temperature plasma, and on the rate of quark and anti-quark pair (flavor) production. When the interactions are taken to be screened at the Debye wave numberq dT, three-particle interactions contribute significantly to the collision rate, but only marginally enhance flavor production over that from two-particle interactions. The magnitudes of the rates are, however, sensitive to the infra-red thresholds, which emphasizes the need for a reliable analysis of this issue. Our results also highlight the importance of treating many-particle processes adequately in the space-time evolution of quarks and gluons produced in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions.We thank members of the Theoretical Physics Institute and the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota for their kind hospitality. Special thanks are due to J.I. Kapusta for stimulating discussions. The stay of P. L. at the University of Minnesota was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant No. DOE/DE-FG02-87ER-40328; travel expenses were borne by the grant MM SR 01/35. Research support for M. P. by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant No. DE-FG02-88ER-40388 is acknowledged. The paper was written in its final form at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, during the research program Strong Interactions at Finite Temperatures. The authors express gratitude for the warm hospitality extended there and acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY89-04035.     

Charm production in a quark-gluon plasma

A calculation is made for charm quark production in a longitudinally expanding quark-gluon plasma. A comparison is made with hadronic charm production in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions assuming an extrapolation from p-p collisions and no plasma formation. The charm yield from a QGP begins to dominate purely hadronic production for plasma temperatures above 315–440 MeV, depending on the bombarding energy of the colliding nuclei and the value assumed for the charm quark mass. Implications for plasma signals, most notably dilepton emission and J/ψ suppression, are discussed.     

Behavior of underexpanded plasma jet in strong magnetic field

A visual study of underexpanded plasma jet was conducted to reveal the detailed behavior in the strong magnetic field. The images of the jet were taken by a digital single-lens reflex camera through viewing windows. The distribution of optical intensity obtained from the raw data was compared to that of the typical emission line intensity. The profile of the optical intensity agrees well with that of the emission intensity. It is illustrated that the typical structure of underexpanded jet such as Mach disk is also affected obviously by the magnetic field. The radial distribution of number density was determined by using the image analysis based on the Abel-inversion. The converted data clarify the jet behavior that is hidden on the ordinary observation. The density obtained from numerical analysis for a simple gas was also compared with the number density. It is confirmed from the comparison with numerical results that the radial profile of number density can be utilized for understanding the plasma jet behavior under the strong magnetic field.     

On diquark clusters in a quark-gluon plasma

An attempt is made to account for the effect of the size of a diquark in exploring the possibility that the pairs of quarks will form diquark clusters in a quark-gluon plasma. It is found that the extended scalar diquarks are distributed more uniformly in the spatial volume than the point diquarks. Although the qualitative features of the pressure-energy density curve remain more or less the same except for small values of energy density, but there appears further lowering of the diquark gas energy in the present case as compared not only to that of the point diquark but also of a free quark gas.     

Transverse excitation and shear viscosity in a strongly coupled classical one-component plasma

The transverse excitation is studied by using a relaxation theory of an effective field. It is found that the interplay of the structure and current relaxations is an essential ingredient to understand the dynamical feature of the transverse correlation and a peculiar plasma parameter dependence of the shear viscosity.     

Hydrodynamics of a quark-gluon plasma undergoing a phase transition

We present a new method for solving the relativistic hydrodynamic equations. This method allows a simple and reliable numerical treatment of shock waves. We check its accuracy in one-dimensional problems for which analytical solutions are known. Then we apply it to a 3-dimensional calculation of the evolution of a quark-gluon plasma, assuming cylindrical symmetry and longitudinal boost invariance. We treat the hadronization as a first-order phase transition and study the effects of this phase transition on the final distributions of particles. In particular, we analyse the possible correlations between particle multiplicities and transverse momenta which might signal the occurrence of such a phase transition in heavy ion collisions.