Nonperturbative heavy-quark diffusion in the quark-gluon plasma

We evaluate heavy-quark (HQ) transport properties in a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) within a Brueckner many-body scheme employing interaction potentials extracted from thermal lattice QCD. The in-medium T matrices for elastic charm- and bottom-quark scattering off light quarks in the QGP are dominated by attractive meson and diquark channels which support resonance states up to temperatures of ~1.5T(c). The resulting drag coefficient increases with decreasing temperature, contrary to expectations based on perturbative QCD scattering. Employing relativistic Langevin simulations we compute HQ spectra and elliptic flow in sqrt[s(NN)]=200 GeV Au-Au collisions. A good agreement with electron decay data supports our nonperturbative computation of HQ diffusion, indicative for a strongly coupled QGP.     

Heavy-flavour spectra in high-energy nucleus–nucleus collisions

The propagation of the heavy quarks produced in relativistic nucleus–nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC is studied within the framework of Langevin dynamics in the background of an expanding deconfined medium described by ideal and viscous hydrodynamics. The transport coefficients entering into the relativistic Langevin equation are evaluated by matching the hard-thermal-loop result for soft collisions with a perturbative QCD calculation for hard scatterings. The heavy-quark spectra thus obtained are employed to compute the differential cross sections, the nuclear modification factors R _AA and the elliptic-flow coefficients v ₂ of electrons from heavy-flavor decay.     

Recent results from parton-cascade/microscopic transport

The parton-cascade model is a microscopic transport approach in the study of the space-time evolution of the quark–gluon plasma produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and its experimental manifestations. In the following, parton-cascade calculations on elliptic flow and thermalization will be discussed. Dynamical evolution is shown to be important for the production of elliptic flow including the scaling and the breaking of the scaling of elliptic flow. The degree of thermalization is estimated using both an elastic parton-cascade and a radiative transport model. A longitudinal to transverse pressure ratio of P _L /P _T ≈0.8 is shown to be expected in the central cell in central collisions. This provides information on viscous corrections to the ideal hydrodynamical approach.     

Heavy quark results from STAR

I report the most recent measurements on open heavy flavor production at RHIC on behalf of the STAR collaboration. The total charm production cross section in midrapidity at RHIC energy is found to approximately scale by number of binary collisions in d + Au, Cu + Cu and Au + Au collisions. The nuclear modification factor of non-photonic electrons is strongly suppressed in central Au + Au collisions, suggesting substantial heavy quark energy loss at RHIC. The bottom decay contribution to non-photonic electrons was studied via the e–h and e–D ⁰ azimuthal angular correlations. The bottom contribution is found to be important at p _T >5 GeV/c, and is consistent with the FONLL calculation within uncertainties. Charm production through gluon jet splitting was measured by studying the D ^*± contents in the fully reconstructed jets in p+p collisions. This rate is consistent with pQCD evaluation of gluon splitting into a pair of charm quarks and subsequent hadronization.     

Can the RHIC <Emphasis Type="Italic">J</Emphasis>/<Emphasis Type="Italic">ψ</Emphasis> puzzle(s) be settled at LHC?

One observes strong suppression effects for hard probes, e.g. the production of J/ψ or high-p _T particles, in nucleus–nucleus (AA) collisions at RHIC. Surprisingly, the magnitude of the suppression is quite similar to that at SPS. In order to establish whether these features arise due to the presence of a thermalized system of quarks and gluons formed in the course of the collision, one should investigate the impact of suppression mechanisms which do not explicitly involve such a state. We calculate shadowing for gluons in the Glauber–Gribov theory and propose a model invoking a rapidity-dependent absorptive mechanism motivated by energy-momentum conservation effects. Furthermore, final-state suppression due to interaction with comoving matter (hadronic or pre-hadronic) has been shown to describe the data at SPS. We extend this model by including the backward reaction channel, i.e. recombination of open charm, which is estimated directly from pp data at RHIC. Strong suppression of charmonium both in pA and AA collisions at LHC is predicted. This is in stark contrast with the predictions of models assuming QGP formation and thermalization of heavy quarks.     

胶子非弹性散射过程对夸克胶子等离子体中双轻子产生的影响

双轻子是研究夸克物质的形成和性质的重要探针.本文基于化学平衡化的黏滞性夸克胶子等离子体演化模型,计算了相对论重离子碰撞能量下金-金对心碰撞形成的夸克胶子等离子体中的双轻子产额.在黏滞性计算中加入了胶子非弹性散射过程对黏滞系数的贡献.相较仅考虑夸克和胶子弹性散射的情况,双轻子的产额有较明显的降低.这表明在黏滞系数中加入胶子非弹性散射的贡献使得系统的演化过程加快,演化时间变短.     

Diffraction at HERA, Color Opacity and Nuclear Shadowing in DIS off nuclei

The QCD factorization theorem for diffractive processes in DIS is used to derive formulae for the leading twist contribution to the nuclear shadowing of parton distributions in the low thickness limit (due to the coherent projectile (photon) interactions with two nucleons). Based on the current analyzes of diffraction at HERA we find that the average strength of the interactions which govern diffraction in the gluon sector at x≤ 10⁻³, Q ₀= 2 GeV is ∼50mb. This is three times larger than in the quark sector and suggests that applicability of DGLAP approximation requires significantly larger Q ₀ in the gluon sector. We use this information on diffraction to estimate the higher order shadowing terms due to the photon interactions with N≥ 3 nucleons which are important for the scattering of heavy nuclei and to calculate nuclear shadowing and Q ² dependence of gluon densities. For the heavy nuclei the amount of the gluon shadowing: G _A(x,Q ₀ ²) /AG _N(x,Q ₀ ²)_{|x ≤ 10−3}∼ 0.25–0.4 is sensitive to the probability of the small size configurations within wave function of the gluon “partonometer” at the Q ₀ scale. At this scale for A∼ 200 the nonperturbative contribution to the gluon density is reduced by a factor of 4–5 at x≤ 10⁻³ unmasking PQCD physics in the gluon distribution of heavy nuclei. We point out that the shadowing of this magnitude would strongly modify the first stage of the heavy ion collisions at the LHC energies, and also would lead to large color opacity effects in eA collisions at HERA energies. In particular, the leading twist contribution to the cross section of the coherent J/ψ production off A≥ 12 nuclei at s ⁻²≥ 70 GeV is strongly reduced as compared to the naive color transparency expectations. The Gribov black body limit for F _2A(x,Q ²) is extended to the case of the gluon distributions in nuclei and shown to be relevant for the HERA kinematics of eA collisions. Properties of the final states are also briefly discussed. Received: 12 March 1999     

Heavy-quark production in p $$\bar p$$ collisions and unintegrated gluon distributions

The inclusive production of heavy (c and b) quarks in high-energy p\(\bar p\) collisions are considered within the semihard approach in QCD. The dependence of the cross section for heavy-quark production, σ(p_T>p _T ^min ), on unintegrated gluon distributions is studied. The results of this consideration are compared with experimental data obtained by the D0 and CDF Collaborations at Tevatron.     

Investigation of the dynamics of gluon distributions in the production of heavy quarks and quarkonia at the LEP2 collider

The inclusive production of heavy quarks and quarkonia in photon-photon collisions at the LEP2 collider is considered within the semihard (k _T-factorization) QCD approach. The dependence of the total and differential cross sections for the production of heavy (c and b) quarks and D* and J/ψ mesons on the choice of unintegrated gluon distribution is studied. The transition of a $c\bar c$ charmed pair to observed J/ψ mesons is described on the basis of the color-singlet model. The results of the calculations are compared with currently available experimental data obtained by the L3, OPAL, ALEPH, and DELPHI Collaborations. It is shown that the polarization properties of J/ψ mesons at the LEP2 collider are sensitive to the behavior of unintegrated gluon distributions. This means that experimental investigations of the polarization properties of quarkonia in photon-photon collisions may provide a direct test of the dynamics of gluon distributions in the photon.     

Enhancement of high PT hadrons due to collapsing Z(3) walls in heavy-ion collisions

We discuss enhancement of multiplicities of hadrons at high transverse momentum due to multiple reflections of quarks from collapsing Z(3) interfaces in the QGP produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. By modeling the dependence of effective mass of the quarks on the Polyakov loop order parameter, we evaluate the reflection coefficient of quarks from collapsing Z(3) interfaces. We use the effective potential proposed by Pisarski for the Polyakov loop to determine the profile of the Z(3) interfaces and calculate the reflection probability for quarks. We discuss the formation of a network of these Z(3) walls in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, in the QGP phase. We do a numerical simulation to calculate the modifications in the thermal transverse momentum spectra of the quarks/anti-quarks that results from a collapsing wall. We then use the recombination model to calculate the transverse momentum spectrum of final hadrons. Our results show enhancement of high P _T hadrons, with the enhancement being stronger for heavier quarks. Further, we find that due to larger reflection coefficient for heavier quarks, the density of strange and charm quarks/anti-quarks increases inside the collapsing walls. This implies enhancement in the multiplicities of multi-strange and multi-charmed hadrons.     

Heavy-quark free energies,internal-energy and entropy contributions

We present lattice QCD results on heavy-quark free energies, extract from its temperature dependence the entropy and internal-energy contributions, and discuss the onset of medium effects that lead to screening of static quark–antiquark sources in a thermal medium. The detailed analysis of the temperature and distance dependence of the different contributions indicate the complex non-perturbative nature of strongly interacting matter. We shall discuss the necessity to include those effects in studies on the behavior of heavy quarks, heavy-quark bound states and their dissociation in the quark–gluon plasma phase.     

Investigation of the ALICE muon forward spectrometer performances for upsilon measurement

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the LHC detector dedicated to the study of nucleus–nucleus collisions, in which the formation of the quark–gluon plasma (QGP) is expected. Heavy quarkonia, especially the Upsilon states, are relevant for studying the QGP since they provide an essential probe of the earliest and hottest stages of heavy ion collisions. They will be measured via their dimuon decay channel in ALICE in the muon spectrometer. The muon spectrometer performance has been studied in simulations, the results will be presented with emphasis on the trigger efficiency and rate in Pb–Pb collisions. The expected yields of Upsilon states will be extracted from a simulation based on a global fit of the dimuon mass spectra for different collision centralities.     

Charm hadroproduction within k T -factorization approach

In the problem of describing heavy-quark production in high-energy hadron collisions, a comparison is made between the theoretical status and numerical predictions of two approaches, the traditional parton model in the leading order (LO) and the k _T-factorization approach. Basic assumptions underlying relevant calculations are discussed. A very simple gluon structure function and a fixed coupling constant are chosen for the calculations in order to highlight distinctions associated with the use of nonidentical matrix elements in these two approaches. It is shown that, in the k _T-factorization approach, formal LO calculations performed with allowance for the Sudakov form factor include many terms usually treated as next-to-leading-order (NLO) contributions of the traditional parton model (or even contributions next to NLO ones, NNLO).     

Charmed exotics in heavy ion collisions

Based on the color–spin interaction in diquarks, we argue that charmed multiquark hadrons are likely to exist. Because of the appreciable number of charm quarks produced in central nucleus–nucleus collisions at ultrarelativistic energies, the production of charmed multiquark hadrons is expected to be enhanced in these collisions. Using both the quark coalescence model and the statistical hadronization model, we estimate the yield of charmed tetraquark mesons, T_cc, and pentaquark baryons, Θ_cs, in heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC. We further discuss the decay modes of these charmed exotic hadrons in order to facilitate their detections in experiments. PACS 25.75.Dw; 14.20.Lq; 14.40.Lb     

Heavy-quark hadroproduction in k T -factorization approach with unintegrated gluon distributions

We consider the processes of heavy-quark production using the unintegrated gluon distributions. The numerical predictions for high-energy nucleon-nucleon and photon-nucleon collisions of the k _T -factorization approach (semihard theory) are compared with the experimental data from the Tevatron collider and HERA. The total production cross sections and pT distributions are considered and they are in reasonable agreement with the data for reasonable values of QCD scale. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Gluon radiation outside a finite cone

The medium-induced gluon radiation angular distributions of light quarks and heavy quarks outside a finite jet cone are studied. We find the effect of destructive interference between the vacuum and medium-induced radiation plays an important role in gluon radiation for very small value of path length L, which leads to the negative value of medium-induced energy loss. The medium-induced radiative energy loss outside an angle for heavy quarks is found to have a minimum and a maximum at small angle for small path length, which are caused by dead cone effect and Brownian k _⊥-broadening effect, respectively. However for large path length the minimum and maximum disappear.     

Studying the relative bottom contribution via heavy-quark decay electron measurements in STAR

We report measurements of the azimuthal angular correlation distribution of heavy-quark decay electrons and open charmed mesons in pp collisions at  GeV in the STAR experiment at RHIC. This measurement in combination with current theoretical model calculations allows to extract the relative bottom contribution to the heavy-quark decay electrons, which is important for the interpretation of the observed strong suppression of the high-p _T electron yield in central Au+Au collisions.     

STAR inner tracking upgrade—a performance study

Anisotropic flow measurements have demonstrated development of partonic collectivity in 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC. To understand the partonic EOS, thermalization must be addressed. Collective motion of heavy-flavor (c, b) quarks can be used to indicate the degree of thermalization of the light-flavor quarks (u, d, s). Measurement of heavy-flavor quark collectivity requires direct reconstruction of heavy-flavor hadrons in the low p _T region. Measurement of open charm spectra to high p _T can be used to investigate heavy-quark energy loss and medium properties. The Heavy Flavor Tracker (HFT), a proposed upgrade to the STAR experiment at midrapidity, will measure v ₂ of open-charm hadrons to very low p _T by reconstructing their displaced decay vertices. The innermost part of the HFT is the PIXEL detector (made of two low mass monolithic active pixel sensor layers), which delivers a high precision position measurement close to the collision vertex. The Intermediate Silicon Tracker (IST), a 1-layer strip detector, is essential to improve hit identification in the PIXEL detector when running at full RHIC-II luminosity. Using a full GEANT simulation, open charm measurement capabilities of STAR with the HFT will be shown. Its performance in a broad p _T range will be demonstrated on v ₂ (p _T>0.5 GeV/c) and R _CP (p _T<10 GeV/c) measurements of D⁰ meson. Results of reconstruction of Λ_C baryon in heavy-ion collisions are presented.     

Stability of quark gluon plasma to nielsen-olesen mode

Nielsen and Olesen showed that perturbative vacuum with uniform chromomagnetic field in one space and one color direction is unstable. This instability is called Nielsen-Olesen instability (NOI), and leads to formation of a ‘spaghetti of flux tubes’ as a model for non-perturbative vacuum and confinement. We re-examine this instability in presence of color sources, quarks and gluons, at a finite temperature and find that at sufficiently high temperature NOI is stabilized due to an ‘effective mass’ of gluons arising through plasma effects. This explains how a QGP with no confinement effects may exist at high temperature. As the temperature is lowered, NOI reappears at a valueT=T _c, which is very close to confinement-deconfinement transition from hadrons to QGP..