Fluctuations and correlations in STAR

The study of correlations and fluctuations can provide evidence for the production of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Various theories predict that the production of a QGP phase in relativistic heavy-ion collisions could produce significant event-by-event correlations and fluctuations in transverse momentum, multiplicity, etc. Some of the recent results using STAR at RHIC will be presented along with results from other experiments at RHIC. The focus is on forward-backward multiplicity correlations, balance function, charge and transverse-momentum fluctuations, and correlations.     

Correlations of neutral and charged particles in 40Ar- 58Ni reaction at 77 MeV/u

The measurement of the two-particle correlation function for different particle species allows to obtain information about the development of the particle emission process: the space-time properties of emitting sources and the emission time sequence of different particles. The single-particle characteristics and two-particle correlation functions for neutral and charged particles registered in forward direction are used to determine that the heavy fragments (deuterons and tritons) are emitted in the first stage of the reaction (pre-equilibrium source) while the majority of neutrons and protons originates from the long-lived quasi-projectile. The emission time sequence of protons, neutrons and deuterons has been obtained from the analysis of non-identical particle correlation functions.     

The semileptonic form factors of B and D mesons in the Quark Confinement Model

The form factors of the weak currents, which appear in the semileptonic decays of the heavy pseudoscalar mesons are calculated within the quark confinement model by taking into account, for the first time, the structure of heavy-meson vertex and the finite quark mass contribution in the heavy-quark propagators. The results are in quite good agreement with the experimental data. Received: 9 June 2000 / Accepted: 15 August 2000     

Measurement of charged pions in 12C + 12C collisions at 1 A GeV and 2 A GeV with HADES

We present the results of a study of charged-pion production in ¹²C + ¹²C collisions at incident beam energies of 1A GeV and 2A GeV using the HADES spectrometer at GSI. The main emphasis of the HADES program is on the dielectron signal from the early phase of the collision. Here, however, we discuss the data with respect to the emission of charged hadrons, specifically the production of mesons, which are related to neutral pions representing a dominant contribution to the dielectron yield. We have performed the first large-angular-range measurement of the distribution of mesons for the ¹²C + ¹²C collision system covering a fairly large rapidity interval. The pion yields, transverse-mass and angular distributions are compared with calculations done within a transport model, as well as with existing data from other experiments. The anisotropy of pion production is systematically analyzed.     

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.     

(<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>,π<Superscript>±</Superscript>) correlations in central heavy-ion collisions at 1 ÷ 2 AGeV

The proton–charged pion correlated emission is studied in the reactions Au (1.06 AGeV) + Au, Ni (1.06 and 1.93 AGeV) + Ni and Ni (1.97 AGeV) + Cu within the BUU approach. The associated invariant mass distributions are shifted to smaller energies with respect to the free Δ(1232) mass distribution due to kinematical reasons. We find that the existing and partly conflicting experimental data do not allow to draw definite conclusions on the in-medium modification of the Δ(1232). Received: 18 October 1999 / Revised version: 4 February 2000     

Analysis of non-photonic electrons in Cu + Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV

Heavy-flavor semileptonic decays are expected to dominate the spectrum of non-photonic electrons produced from collisions at the energies of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The non-photonic electron yield is suppressed by approximately a factor of 5 in central Au + Au events at  GeV relative to p+p events with the same collision energy. Most theoretical models predict less non-photonic-electron suppression than is observed experimentally. We present a preliminary measurement of the yield of non-photonic electrons in Cu + Cu events at  GeV, as well as the nuclear modification factor.     

Pion mass shift and the kinetic freeze-out process

The kinetic freeze-out process of a pion gas through a finite layer with time-like normal is considered. The pion gas is described by a Boltzmann gas with elastic collisions among the pions. Within this model, the impact of the in-medium pion mass modification on the freeze-out process is studied. A marginal change of the freeze-out variables temperature and flow velocity and an insignificant modification of the frozen-out particle distribution function has been found.     

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.     

Dielectron spectroscopy at 1-2 AGeV with HADES?

The HADES spectrometer at GSI (Darmstadt) is investigating the e ⁺ e ^- pair production in p+p, p+A and A+A collisions. In this contribution we would like to highlight the physics motivations and the experiments performed so far, focusing mainly on the first results coming from ¹²C + ¹²C collisions at 1 and 2AGeV, and on preliminary results from p+p/d+p collisions at 1.25AGeV. Original article based on material presented at HADRON 2007.     

Study of semileptonic and nonleptonic decays of the B<Subscript>c</Subscript><Superscript>-</Superscript> meson

We evaluate semileptonic and two-meson nonleptonic decays of the B _c ^- meson in the framework of a nonrelativistic quark model. The former are done in spectator approximation using one-body current operators at the quark level. Our model reproduces the constraints of heavy-quark spin symmetry obtained in the limit of infinite heavy-quark mass. For the two-meson nonleptonic decays we work in factorization approximation. We compare our results to the ones obtained in different relativistic approaches.     

Determination of the b -quark mass and nonperturbative parameters in semileptonic B -meson decays at BABAR⋆

Knowing the mass of the b -quark is essential to the study of the structure and decays of B -mesons as well as to future tests of the Higgs mechanism of mass generation. We present recent preliminary measurements of the b -quark mass and related nonperturbative parameters from moments of kinematic distributions in charmed and charmless semileptonic B -meson decays. Their determination from charmless semileptonic B -meson decays is the first measurement in this mode. The data were collected by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e ⁺ e ^- -collider at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at a center-of-mass energy of 10.58GeV. Original article based on material presented at HADRON 2007.     

Universal scaling of the elliptic flow data at RHIC

Recent PHOBOS measurements of the excitation function for the pseudo-rapidity dependence of the elliptic flow in Au + Au collisions at RHIC have posed a significant theoretical challenge. Here we show that these differential measurements, as well as the RHIC measurements on transverse momentum satisfy a universal scaling relation predicted by the Buda-Lund model, based on exact solutions of perfect fluid hydrodynamics. We also show that the recently found transverse kinetic energy scaling of the elliptic flow is a special case of this universal scaling.     

Quarkonia measurements with STAR

We report results on quarkonium production from the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC). J/ψ spectra in p+p and Cu+Cu collisions at  GeV with transverse momenta in the range of 0.5–14 GeV/c and 5–8 GeV/c, respectively, are presented. We find that for p _T >5 GeV/c yields in p+p collisions are consistent with those in minimum-bias Cu+Cu collisions scaled with the respective number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. In this range the nuclear modification factor, R _AA , is measured to be 0.9±0.2 (stat). For the first time at RHIC, high-p _T J/ψ-hadron correlations were studied in p+p collisions. Implications from our measurements on J/ψ production mechanisms, constraints on open bottom yields, and J/ψ dissociation mechanisms at high-p _T are discussed. In addition, we give a brief status of measurements of ϒ production in p+p and Au+Au collisions and present projections of future quarkonia measurements based on an upgrades to the STAR detector and increased luminosity achieved through stochastic cooling of RHIC.     

Power laws in elementary and heavy-ion collisions A story of fluctuations and nonextensivity?

We review from the point of view of nonextensive statistics the ubiquitous presence in elementary and heavy-ion collisions of power law distributions. Special emphasis is placed on the conjecture that this is just a reflection of some intrinsic fluctuations existing in the hadronic systems considered. These systems are summarily described by a single parameter q playing the role of a nonextensivity measure in the nonextensive statistical models based on Tsallis entropy. This paper is part of the Topical Issue Statistical Power Law Tails in High-Energy Phenomena.     

$ \Phi$ -variable calculated for the mixture of thermal sources

The -variable, a measure of statistical correlation of particle momenta, introduced by Mrówczyński and Gaździcki, has been calculated for the events simulated with a simple thermal toy model. It is shown that mixing two thermal sources of unequal temperature can result in negative values of .     

Determining the uncertainty on the total heavy-flavor cross section

We assess the theoretical uncertainties on the total heavy-quark cross section. We discuss the importance of the quark mass, the choice of the scale, the number of light flavors and the parton densities on the estimate of the uncertainty. At first glance, the uncertainty bands on the total charm cross sections obtained by integrating the FONLL inclusive cross section and by integrating the partonic total cross sections appear to be incompatible. We explain how this apparent difference arises and describe how the two results can be reconciled. The small mass of the charm quark amplifies the effect of varying the other parameters in the calculation, making the uncertainty on the total charm cross section difficult to quantify. On the other hand, the bottom-quark total cross section is under much better theoretical control, and differences between the two approaches are small.     

Kaon and antikaon optical potentials in isospin asymmetric hyperonic matter

The medium modifications of the energies of kaons and antikaons in isospin asymmetric hyperonic matter are investigated using a chiral SU(3) model. The isospin-dependent medium effects are important for asymmetric heavy-ion collision experiments, as well as relevant for the neutron star phenomenology as the bulk matter in the interior of the neutron star is highly isospin asymmetric. The effects of hyperons on the medium modifications of the kaons and antikaons in the strange hadronic matter are investigated in the present work and are seen to be appreciable for hadronic matter with large strangeness fractions. The study of the K -mesons in the asymmetric strange hadronic matter can be especially relevant for the compressed strange baryonic matter which can result from asymmetric heavy-ion collision experiments in the future accelerator facility FAIR at GSI.     

Recent high-<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis><Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">T</Emphasis></Subscript> results from STAR

We present selected recent results of multi-hadron correlation measurements in azimuth and pseudorapidity at intermediate and high p _T in Au+Au collisions at , from the STAR experiment at RHIC. At intermediate p _T , measurements are presented that attempt to determine the origin of the associated near-side (small Δφ) yield at large pseudo-rapidity difference Δη that is found to be present in heavy ion collisions. In addition, results are reported on new multi-hadron correlation measures at high-p _T that use di-hadron triggers and multi-hadron cluster triggers with the goal to constrain the underlying jet kinematics better than in the existing measurements of inclusive spectra and di-hadron correlations.