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.     

Probing the QCD chiral cross-over transition in heavy ion collisions

We argue that by measuring higher moments of the net proton number fluctuations in heavy ion collisions (HIC) one can probe the QCD chiral cross-over transition experimentally. We discuss the properties of fluctuations of the net baryon number in the vicinity of the chiral cross-over transition within the Polyakov loop extended quark-meson model at finite temperature and baryon density. The calculation includes non-perturbative dynamics implemented within the functional renormalization group approach. We find a clear signal for the chiral cross-over transition in the fluctuations of the net baryon number. We address our theoretical findings to experimental data of the STAR Collaboration on energy and centrality dependence of the net proton number fluctuations and their probability distributions in HIC.     

Lattice results on QCD at high temperature and non-zero baryon number density

Studies of QCD thermodynamics on the lattice now can be performed with an almost realistic quark mass spectrum and on quite large lattices. This will soon allow a controlled extrapolation to the continuum limit. We present recent results on the QCD equation of state, discuss deconfining and chiral symmetry restoring aspects of the QCD transition at vanishing chemical potential and show results on baryon number, electric charge and strangeness fluctuations. We briefly discuss the generic structure of Taylor expansion coefficients in the vicinity of the chiral phase transition and comment on the determination of the anticipated chiral critical point within the framework of Taylor expansions of the QCD partition function.     

Second to tenth order susceptibilities of conserved charges within a modified Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model

We discuss the sign and energy dependence of second to tenth order susceptibilities of the baryon number,charge number, and strangeness for the analysis of critical conditions in heavy ion collisions in the LHC and RHIC by applying a modified Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. This model is fitted to the quark condensate of the lattice QCD result at finite temperature and zero baryon chemical potential. The presence of a critical point made these susceptibilities deviate considerably from a Hadron-Resonance-Gas model that shows no criticality. The sign, magnitude, and energy dependence of these higher order fluctuations hint towards the existence and location of a critical point that could be discovered in future heavy ion collision experiments.     

Baryon fluctuations from the QCD phase transition

Extraordinary baryon fluctuations can signal a nearly first order phase transition at RHIC. We discuss how these fluctuations can be measured. Next, we apply a dissipative-hydrodynamic formulation used in condensed matter physics to simulate the formation_— though spinodal decomposition_— and subsequent evolution of these fluctuations.     

Centrality dependence of particle yields and their ratios at RHIC experiments

The collision centrality dependence of the yields per unit rapidity dN/dy along with their ratios for various hadrons produced in Au+Au collisions at different collision energies have been studied within the framework of unified statistical thermal freeze-out model (USTFM) taking into account both longitudinal and transverse hydrodynamic flows. Bulk freeze-out properties in terms of the thermal parameters, temperature and mid-rapidity baryon chemical potential at chemical freeze-out, obtained within the proposed model, which are in agreement with experimental data. The extracted chemical freeze-out temperature is found to depend weakly on the collision centrality. It is also found that this temperature is almost independent of the collision energies considered in this work. The closeness of the freeze-out temperature to the predicted phase-transition temperature suggests that the chemical freeze-out happens near hadronization. Furthermore, the dependence of the mid-rapidity chemical potential on the collision energy at different centralities, as well as the centrality dependence of the mid-rapidity size of the system in terms of the transverse size of the system, has been studied at the RHIC. The effect of resonance decay contributions has also been taken into account.     

Chemical potential dependence of particle ratios within a unified thermal approach

A unified statistical thermal freeze-out model (USTFM) is used to study the chemical potential dependence of identified particle ratios at mid-rapidity in heavy-ion collisions. We successfully reproduce the experimental data ranging from SPS energies to LHC energies, suggesting the statistical nature of the particle production in these collisions and hence the validity of our approach. The behavior of the freeze-out temperature is studied with respect to chemical potential. The freeze-out temperature is found to be universal at the RHIC and LHC and is close to the QCD predicted phase transition temperature, suggesting that the chemical freeze-out occurs soon after the hadronization takes place.     

Intriguing aspects in baryon production at relativistic heavy-ion collider

We review experimental results on baryon production at mid-rapidity in nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC. Outstanding physics issues include the mechanism for baryon-anti-baryon production from thermally equilibrated partons, the dynamics of baryon number transport and the evolution dynamics of baryons during hadronic expansion before the final freeze-out. We highlight recent measurements on the production of protons, lambdas and their anti-particles in terms of these physics issues. We propose a physical mechanism of topological baryon formation through gluon junction hadronization and future measurements, which can test this hypothesis experimentally.     

Jozsó's Legacy: Chemical and kinetic freeze-out in heavy-ion collisions

We review J. Zimányi's key contributions to the theoretical understanding of dynamical freeze-out in nuclear collisions and their subsequent applications to ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, leading to the discovery of a freeze-out hierarchy where chemical freeze-out of hadron yields precedes the thermal decoupling of their momentum spectra. Following Zimányi's lines of reasoning we show that kinetic freeze-out necessarily leads to a dependence of the corresponding freeze-out temperature on collision centrality. This centrality dependence can be predicted within hydrodynamic models, and for Au+Au collisions at RHIC this prediction is shown to reproduce the experimentally observed centrality dependence of the thermal decoupling temperature, extracted from hadron momentum spectra. The fact that no such centrality dependence is observed for the chemical decoupling temperature, extracted from the hadron yields measured in these collisions, excludes a similar kinetic interpretation of the chemical decoupling process. We argue that the chemical decoupling data from Au+Au collisions at RHIC can only be consistently understood if the chemical freeze-out process is driven by a phase transition, and that the measured chemical decoupling temperature therefore measures the critical temperature of the quark-hadron phase transition. We propose additional experiments to further test this interpretation.     

Baryon number cumulants and proton number cumulants in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Baryon number cumulants are invaluable tools to diagnose the primordial stage of heavy ion collisions. In experiments, however, proton number cumulants have been measured as substitutes. In fact, proton number fluctuations are further modified in the hadron phase and different from those of baryon number. We give formulas that express the baryon number cumulants solely in terms of proton number fluctuations, which are experimentally observable.     

Chiral criticality and glue dynamics

The chiral order-parameter σ field and its higher-order cumulants of fluctuations are calculated within the functional renormalization group approach by adopting the local potential approximation in this study. The influence of glue dynamics on fluctuations of the σ field is investigated, and we find that they are weakly affected. This is in sharp contrast to the baryon number fluctuations, which are sensitive to the glue dynamics and involve information on the color confinement. The implications of our calculated results are discussed from the viewpoint of the theoretical and experimental efforts in the search for the QCD critical end point.     

Search for Hawking radiation in heavy ion collisions

The creation of “white holes” that decay by Hawking radiation has been proposed as one way to achieve the very early thermalization observed in heavy ion collisions at RHIC. The charartistic temperature of the radiations depends only on the ratio of the baryon number to the transverse energy. The yields of pions, kaons, protons and antiprotons measured by BRAHMS in central Au+Au collisions can be described within a thermal model where T drops with rapidity, and beam energy. We find that the chemical freeze-out temperature drops as the ratio of baryon number to energy increases but much more rapidly than predicted by the model.     

Thermodynamics of chiral symmetry at low densities

The phase diagram of two-color QCD as a function of temperature and baryon chemical potential is considered. Using a low-energy chiral Lagrangian based on the symmetries of the microscopic theory, we determine, at the one-loop level, the temperature dependence of the critical chemical potential for diquark condensation and the temperature dependence of the diquark condensate and baryon density. The prediction for the temperature dependence of the critical chemical potential is consistent with the one obtained for a dilute Bose gas. The associated phase transition is shown to be of second order for low temperatures and first order at higher temperatures. The tricritical point at which the second order phase transition ends is determined. The results are carried over to QCD with quarks in the adjoint representation and to ordinary QCD at a non-zero chemical potential for isospin.     

QCD with two colors at finite baryon density at next-to-leading order

We study QCD with two colors and quarks in the fundamental representation at finite baryon density in the limit of light-quark masses. In this limit the free energy of this theory reduces to the free energy of a chiral Lagrangian which is based on the symmetries of the microscopic theory. In earlier work this Lagrangian was analyzed at the mean-field level and a phase transition to a phase of condensed diquarks was found at a chemical potential of half the diquark mass (which is equal to the pion mass). In this article we analyze this theory at next-to-leading order in chiral perturbation theory. We show that the theory is renormalizable and calculate the next-to-leading order free energy in both phases of the theory. By deriving a Landau–Ginzburg theory for the order parameter we show that the finite one-loop contribution and the next-to-leading order terms in the chiral Lagrangian do not qualitatively change the phase transition. In particular, the critical chemical potential is equal to half the next-to-leading order pion mass, and the phase transition is of second order.     

Expanding the thermodynamical potential and analysis of the possible phase diagram of deconfinement in the FL model

Deconfinement phase transition is studied in the FL model at finite temperature and chemical potential. At MFT approximation, phase transition can only be first order in the whole μ-T phase plane. Using a Landau expansion, we further study the phase transition order and the possible phase diagram of deconfinement. We discuss the possibilities of second order phase transitions in the FL model. From our analysis, if the cubic term in the Landau expansion could be cancelled by the higher order fluctuations, second order phase transition may occur. By an ansatz of the Landau parameters, we obtain a possible phase diagram with both the first and second order phase transitions, including the tri-critical point which is similar to that of the chiral phase transition.     

Dark matter and the baryon asymmetry of the universe

We present a mechanism to generate the baryon asymmetry of the Universe which preserves the net baryon number created in the big bang. If dark matter particles carry baryon number Bx, and sigmaxannih相似文献   

The chiral phase transition at high baryon density from nonperturbative flow equations

We investigate the chiral phase transition at high baryon number density within the linear quark meson model for two flavors. The method we employ is based on an exact renormalization group equation for the free energy. Truncated nonperturbative flow equations are derived at nonzero chemical potential and temperature. Whereas the renormalization group flow leads to spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in vacuum, we find a chiral symmetry restoring first order transition at high density. Combined with previous investigations at nonzero temperature, the result implies the presence of a tricritical point with long–range correlations in the phase diagram. Received: 24 August 1999 / Published online: 17 February 2000     

The functional renormalization group and O(4) scaling

The critical behavior of the chiral quark-meson model is studied within the Functional Renormalization Group (FRG). We derive the flow equation for the scale-dependent thermodynamic potential at finite temperature and density in the presence of a symmetry-breaking external field. We perform a set of approximations to formulate and solve the FRG flow equation in the presence of fermionic degrees of freedom and test their influence on the O(4) critical properties expected in the quark-meson model. Within this scheme, the critical scaling behavior of the order parameter, its transverse and longitudinal susceptibilities as well as the correlation lengths near the chiral phase transition are computed for vanishing baryon density. We focus on the scaling properties of these observables at non-vanishing external field when approaching the critical point from the symmetric as well as from the broken phase. We confront our numerical results with the Widom–Griffiths form of the magnetic equation of state, obtained by a systematic ε expansion of the scaling function.     

Quark matter properties and fluctuations of conserved charges in (2+1)-flavored quark model

In this study, the susceptibilities of conserved charges, baryon number, charge number, and strangeness number at zero and low values of chemical potential are presented. Taylor series expansion was used to obtain results for the three-flavor Polyakov quark meson (PQM) model and the Polyakov loop extended chiral quark mean-field (PCQMF) model. Mean-field approximation was used to study quark matter with the inclusion of the isospin chemical potential, as well as the vector interactions. The effects of isospin chemical potential and vector-interactions on phase diagrams were analyzed. A comparative analysis of the two models was completed. Fluctuations of the conserved charges were enhanced in the transition temperature regime and hence provided information about the critical end point (CEP). Susceptibilities of conserved quantities were calculated by using the Taylor series method. Enhancement of fluctuations in the transition temperature neighborhood provided a clear signature of a quantum chromodynamics (QCD) critical-point.