Can induced theta vacua be created in heavy-Ion collisions?

We discuss a phenomenon important to the development of the early Universe which may be experimentally testable in heavy-ion collisions. An arbitrary induced straight theta vacuum state should be created in heavy-ion collisions, similar to the creation of the disoriented chiral condensate. It should be a large domain with a wrong straight theta(ind) not equal0 orientation which will mimic the physics of the early Universe when it is believed that the fundamental parameter straight theta(fund) not equal0. We test this idea numerically in a simple model where we study the evolution of the phases of the chiral condensates in QCD with two quark flavors with nonzero straight theta(ind) parameter. We see the formation of a nonzero straight theta(ind) vacuum on a time scale of 10(-23) s.     

Disoriented chiral condensate: Theory and experiment

It is thought that a region of pseudo-vacuum, where the chiral order parameter is misaligned from its vacuum orientation in isospin space, might occasionally form in high-energy hadronic or nuclear collisions. The possible detection of such disoriented chiral condensate (DCC) would provide useful information about the chiral structure of the QCD vacuum and/or the chiral phase transition of strong interactions at high temperature. We review the theoretical developments concerning the possible DCC formation in high-energy collisions as well as the various experimental searches that have been performed so far. We discuss future prospects for upcoming DCC searches e.g. in high-energy heavy-ion collision experiments at RHIC and LHC.     

自旋与手征动力学的输运模拟研究

自旋相关的物理是多个研究领域的热门课题。核子和夸克都是自旋为1/2的费米子,在非对心重离子碰撞中受到自旋-轨道相互作用以及磁场的影响,会产生有趣的自旋动力学,特别是在垂直于反应平面方向上会出现自旋极化。在相对论重离子碰撞中,由于产生了极端的高温高密环境,夸克可以近似看作无质量粒子,此时自旋动力学过渡为手征动力学。在外界电磁场、涡旋场作用下以及在电荷与手征荷不对称的条件下,会产生一系列手征反常效应。本文介绍我们课题组基于输运模拟在自旋与手征动力学方面开展的一系列研究工作,包括中能重离子碰撞及相对论重离子碰撞中粒子的自旋极化、理想体系及相对论重离子碰撞中的手征磁波等。     

Possible evidence of disoriented chiral condensates from the anomaly in Ω. and -Ω abundances at the super proton synchrotron

No conventional picture of nucleus-nucleus collisions has yet been able to explain the abundance of Ω and -Ω. in central collisions between Pb nuclei at 158 A GeV at the CERN SPS. We argue that such a deviation from predictions of statistical thermal models and numerical simulations is the evidence that they are produced as topological defects in the form of skyrmions arising from the formation of disoriented chiral condensates. The estimated domain size falls in the right range to be consistent with the so far non-observation of disoriented chiral condensate (DCC) from the distribution of neutral pions.     

强磁场与涡旋场中的夸克胶子物质

相对论重离子碰撞可以产生高温的夸克胶子物质,同时也产生极强的电磁场和流体涡旋。在强电磁场和涡旋场中的夸克胶子物质呈现出新奇的宏观量子现象,比如手征磁效应、手征涡效应、手征分离效应、手征电分离效应、自旋极化现象等。它们一方面给我们提供了可以探测高温下量子色动力学的非平庸规范场拓扑结构、强相互作用的宇称破坏、夸克胶子物质中的自旋动力学等的实验手段,另一方面也与物理学其他分支,比如粒子物理、凝聚态物理、天体物理、冷原子物理等发生紧密联系,形成新的交叉研究领域。本文旨在对这些宏观量子现象的产生机制以及它们在相对论重离子碰撞中的探测等做一回顾和展望。特别地,我们揭示出重离子碰撞的磁场强度可以达到$10^{18}\sim 10^{20}$ G,流体涡旋可以达到$10^{22}$ s–1;这是我们已知当前宇宙中最强的磁场和流体涡旋。我们定量地对同量素碰撞实验做了分析,发现即便背景比例达到93%以上,当前的同量素碰撞实验仍然可在大约$3\sigma$的显著性水平上判断是否有手征磁效应的发生。我们系统地给出了满足因果律的自旋流体力学方程,并推导了其中的集体激发模式,这将有助于理解超子自旋极化中出现的符号问题。     

相对论重离子碰撞中手征磁效应寻找的现状(英文)

量子色动力学中夸克和拓扑胶子场的相互作用可以产生局域宇称和共轭电荷宇称不守恒,这也许能解释宇宙中物质-反物质的不对称性。在强磁场下,宇称不守恒会导致粒子按正负电荷分离,此现象称为手征磁效应。在重离子碰撞实验中对电荷分离的测量主要受物理本底的影响,大部分的理论和实验工作一直致力于消除或减少这些本底。在此综述了相对论重离子碰撞中手征磁效应寻找的现状。Quark interactions with topological gluon fields in QCD can yield local P and CP violations which could explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry in our universe. Effects of P and CP violations can result in charge separation under a strong magnetic field, a phenomenon called the chiral magnetic effect (CME). Experimental measurements of the CME-induced charge separation in heavy-ion collisions are dominated by physics backgrounds. Major theoretical and experimental efforts have been devoted to eliminating or reducing those backgrounds. We review the current status of these efforts in the search for the CME in heavy-ion collisions.     

Dynamical formation of disoriented chiral condensates

We study the dynamical formation of disoriented chiral condensates in very high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions using Bjorken hydrodynamics and relativistic nucleation theory. It is the dynamics of the first order confinement phase transition which controls the evolution of the system. Every bubble or fluctuation of the new, hadronic, phase obtains its own chiral condensate with a probability determined by the Boltzmann weight of the finite temperature effective potential of the linear sigma model. We evaluate domain size and chiral angle distributions, which can be used as initial conditions for the solution of semiclassical field equations.     

Nuclear $\gamma$-radiation as a signature of ultra-peripheral ion collisions at the LHC

We study the peripheral ion collisions at LHC energies where a nucleus is excited to a discrete state and then emits -rays. Large nuclear Lorenz factors allow the observation of high-energy photons up to a few tens GeV and in the angular region of a few hundred micro-radians from the beam direction. These photons can be used to tagg events with particle production in the central rapidity region in ultra-peripheral collisions. To detect these photons it is necessary to have an electromagnetic detector in front of the zero-degree calorimeter in LHC experiments.Received: 10 February 2004, Revised: 9 March 2004, Published online: 14 September 2004PACS: 25.75.-q Relativistic heavy-ion collisions - 25.75.Dw Particle and resonance production     

Observation of direct photons in central 158A GeV (208)P(208)b+Pb collisions

A measurement of direct photon production in 208Pb+208Pb collisions at 158A GeV has been carried out in the CERN WA98 experiment. The invariant yield of direct photons in central collisions is extracted as a function of transverse momentum in the interval 0.51.5 GeV/c. The result constitutes the first observation of direct photons in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. It could be significant for diagnosis of quark-gluon-plasma formation.     

High energy nuclear collisions: Theory overview

We review some basic concepts of relativistic heavy-ion physics and discuss our understanding of some key results from the experimental program at the relativistic heavy-ion collider (RHIC). We focus in particular on the early time dynamics of nuclear collisions, some result from lattice QCD, hard probes and photons.     

Multiplicity and pseudorapidity distributions of photons in Au+Au collisions at square root of (S(NN)) = 62.4 GeV

We present the first measurement of pseudorapidity distribution of photons in the region 2.3 < or = eta < or = 3.7 for different centralities in Au+Au collisions at square root of (S(NN)) = 62.4 GeV. We find that the photon yield scales with the number of participating nucleons at all collision centralities studied. The pseudorapidity distribution of photons, dominated by pi0 decays, has been compared to those of charged pions, photons, and inclusive charged particles from heavy-ion and nucleon-nucleon collisions at various energies. The photon production has been shown to be consistent with the energy and centrality independent limiting fragmentation scenario.     

Off-equilibrium photon production during the chiral phase transition

In the early stage of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions chiral symmetry is restored temporarily. During this so-called chiral phase transition, the quark masses change from their constituent to their bare values. This mass shift leads to the spontaneous non-perturbative creation of quark–antiquark pairs, which effectively contributes to the formation of the quark–gluon plasma. We investigate the photon production induced by this creation process. We provide an approach that eliminates possible unphysical contributions from the vacuum polarization and renders the resulting photon spectra integrable in the ultraviolet domain. The off-equilibrium photon numbers are of quadratic order in the perturbative coupling constants while a thermal production is only of quartic order. Quantitatively, we find, however, that for the most physical mass-shift scenarios and for photon momenta larger than 1 GeV the off-equilibrium processes contribute less photons than the thermal processes.     

Is anomalous production of omega and omega; evidence for disoriented chiral condensates?

No conventional picture of nucleus-nucleus collisions has yet been able to explain the abundance of Omega and Omega; hadrons in central collisions between Pb nuclei at 158A GeV at the CERN SPS. We argue that this is evidence that they are produced as topological defects arising from the formation of disoriented chiral condensates with an average domain size of about 2 fm.     

相对论重离子碰撞的输运模型研究

美国的布鲁克海文国家实验室相对论重离子对撞机（RHIC）和欧洲核子中心的大型强子对撞机（LHC）的大量实验结果表明,在相对论重离子碰撞中已经产生了一种近似完美流体的强耦合部分子物质。基于一个多相粒子输运模型（AMPT）理论工具,对RHIC和LHC实验上的一些重要结果的开展了三个方面的理论研究工作（集体流、喷注淬火、手征磁效应）,研究结果揭示了初始的夸克胶子等离子体（QGP）能量密度涨落经过部分子输运演化产生末态粒子的各阶次的集体流、喷注和部分子物质的相互作用导致喷注的能量损失、末态相互作用严重影响手征磁效应的大小等物理过程作用机制。The experimental results from the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) show that a nearly perfect fluid (i.e. strong-coupling Quark Gluon Plasma) has been created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. I introduce our theoretical results based on a multi-phase transport (AMPT) model. Several important topics such as collective flow, jet quenching, chiral magnetic effect, are addressed. The simulation results indicate that the initial fluctuations of energy density of the QGP lead to all orders of harmonic flows of final particles via parton cascade, the strong interactions between jet and the QGP make jet lose much energy, and the final state interactions play an important role to affect the initial chiral magnetic effect in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.     

Microscopic theory of photon production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions

The production of energetic photons in medium-energy proton and heavy-ion induced reactions is studied on the basis of incoherent nucleon-nucleon collisions. For this purpose we first evaluate covariantly the photon production from proton-neutron collisions in a vector (ω) and scalar meson (σ) exchange model with coupling constants given by the M2Y G-matrix in the nonrelativistic limit. We furthermore follow the proton-neutron collisional history by means of a phase-space simulation based on the Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck approach for proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions adding up incoherently the yields from each individual collision. The satisfactory agreement we obtain in comparison with experimental data allows to conclude that energetic photons predominantly arise from proton-neutron bremsstrahlung during the early stage of the collision.     

Photon — jet correlations measurement with ALICE at LHC: a feasibility study in proton-proton collisions

The feasibility to measure the imbalance distribution between direct isolated photons and charged hadrons is discussed within the context of the ALICE experiment at LHC. The case of proton-proton collisions at ?s\sqrt s TeV is studied with Monte-Carlo simulations. Performances for prompt photon identification and rejection of the π ⁰ decay photons are presented. Such a measurement will offer the possibilty to probe the medium formed in AA collisions with jets of energies below 50 GeV, which cannot be reconstructed in the heavy-ion environment.     

Photon polarization as a probe for quark–gluon plasma dynamics

Prospects of measuring polarized photons emitted from a quark–gluon plasma (QGP) are discussed. In particular, the detection of a possible quark spin polarization in a QGP using circularly polarized photons emitted from the plasma is studied. Photons leave the QGP without further interaction and thus provide a primary probe for quark polarization within the QGP. We find that photon polarization cannot solely arise due to a possible QGP momentum space anisotropy, but may be enhanced due to it. In particular, for oblate momentum distributions and high photon energies, quark polarization is efficiently transfered to photon polarization. The role of competing sources of polarized photons in heavy-ion collisions is discussed.     

Quark condensation, induced symmetry breaking and color superconductivity at high density

The phase structure of hadronic matter at high density relevant to the physics of compact stars and relativistic heavy-ion collisions is studied in a low-energy effective quark theory. The relevant phases that figure are (1) chiral condensation, (2) diquark color condensation (color superconductivity) and (3) induced Lorentz-symmetry breaking (“ISB”). For a reasonable strength for the effective four-Fermi current–current interaction implied by the low-energy effective quark theory for systems with a Fermi surface we find that the “ISB” phase sets in together with chiral symmetry restoration (with the vanishing quark condensate) at a moderate density while color superconductivity associated with scalar diquark condensation is pushed up to an asymptotic density. Consequently, color superconductivity seems rather unlikely in heavy-ion collisions although it may play a role in compact stars. Lack of confinement in the model makes the result of this analysis only qualitative but the hierarchy of the transitions we find seems to be quite robust.     

Higher-order ratios of baryon number cumulants

The relevance of higher order cumulants of net baryon number fluctuations for the analysis of freeze-out and critical conditions in heavy-ion collisions at LHC and RHIC is addressed. The sign structure of the higher order cumulants in the vicinity of the chiral crossover temperature might be a sensitive probe and may allow to elucidate their relation to the QCD phase transition. We calculate ratios of generalized quarknumber susceptibilities to high orders in three flavor QCD-like models and investigate their sign structure close to the chiral crossover line.     

Formation of disoriented chiral condensates in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We present a brief review of the subject of disoriented chiral condensates (DCC). We describe the conventional scenarios for the formation of DCC which have been proposed in the literature. Observable signals, such as fluctuations in neutral to charged pion ratio, are discussed. We then discuss a novel scenario for DCC formation, recently proposed by us, where the entire region of hot partons can get converted into a single large DCC. Our arguments suggest that formation of such large DCC is unlikely in the collision of heavy nuclei, and ultra-high energy hadronic collisions may be better suited for this.