Production of classical pion field and/or disoriented chiral condensate

We discuss the possibility of production of a classical pion field in high energy nuclei-nuclei collisions. We show that the occupation number for the produced pions can be large as required for the case of a classical field. By examination of the cooling we conclude that in the “quench” scenario it is unlikely to produce a large domain of DCC. The size of domain can be essentially larger due to the temperature dependence of the parameters of the effective Lagrangian. However even in this case the decay of the DCC leads to the production of no more than several tenths of pions which are not easy to distinguish from the “normal” pions.     

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.     

Decay of kaonium in a chiral approach

The decay of the K⁺K⁻ hadronic atom kaonium is investigated non-perturbatively using meson-meson interaction amplitudes taken from leading order chiral perturbation theory in an approach adapted from that proposed by Oller and Oset (1997) [18]. The Kudryavtsev-Popov eigenvalue equation is solved numerically for the energy shift and decay width due to strong interactions in the 1s state. These calculations introduce a cutoff ∼1.4 GeV in O(4) momentum space that is necessary to regulate divergent loop contributions to the meson-meson scattering amplitudes in the strong-interaction sector. One finds lifetimes of (2.2±0.9)×¹⁰−18 s for the ground state of kaonium.     

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.     

Decay of large underwater bubble oscillations

Pressure-time series from breathing-mode oscillation of large (centimeter scale or larger) underwater bubbles reveal much higher decay rates than can be explained using viscous, thermal, or radiative mechanisms which apply to microbubbles. It is shown that if one assumes energy transfer to shape oscillations (surface capillary waves) of large amplitude in subharmonic resonance with the breathing mode [M. S. Longuet-Higgins, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 91, 1414 (1992)], then the shape oscillations can drive fluid motions outside the bubble capable of exciting turbulent instabilities. Application of an appropriate eddy viscosity from mixing-length theory to the viscous decay mechanism appears to offer a credible explanation for the observed large decay rates. An analysis is given to show that energy is transferred from the breathing mode to surface capillaries fast enough to make the proposed decay mechanism viable.