Effects of the formation time of parton shower on jet quenching in heavy-ion collisions

Jet quenching has successfully served as a hard probe to study the properties of Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). As a multi-particle system, jets require time to develop from a highly virtual parton to a group of partons close to mass shells. In this study, we present a systematical analysis on the effects of this formation time on jet quenching in relativistic nuclear collisions. Jets from initial hard scatterings were simulated with Pythia, and their interactions with QGP were described using a Linear Boltzmann Transport (LBT) model that incorporates both elastic and inelastic scatterings between jet partons and the thermal medium. Three different estimations of the jet formation time were implemented and compared, including instantaneous formation, formation from single splitting, and formation from sequential splittings, before which no jet-medium interaction was assumed. We found that deferring the jet-medium interaction with a longer formation time not only affects the overall magnitude of the nuclear modification factor of jets but also its dependence on the jet transverse momentum.     

Heavy-Ion Collisions: Experimental Highlights

Lattice QCD predicts a phase transition between hadronic matter and a system of deconfined quarks and gluons (the Quark Gluon Plasma) at high energy densities. Our current understanding of this new state of matter will be discussed with two key results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).     

Effects of nuclear charge fluctuations on dilepton photoproduction

Fluctuations of dilepton production from two photon interactions γγ→l~+l~- are studied in semicentral and peripheral nuclear collisions.Based on the Weizsacker-Williams approach,electromagnetic(EM) fields generated by moving nuclear charges are approximated as quasi-real photons.As fluctuating EM fields in each collision event are hard to be measured directly in experiments due to its short lifetime,we study the dilepton photoproduction with fluctuating EM fields,which are crucial for the EM fields induced chiral and charged particle evolutions,and calculate the relative standard deviation of the dilepton mass spectrum with the event-by-event fluctuating nuclear charge distributions.This fluctuation effect becomes smaller in more peripheral collisions where the shift of proton positions is implicit for EM fields outside the nucleus.The uncertainty of effective impact parameter △b on the standard deviation is also studied,and its effect is around one-third of the effect of nuclear charge fluctuations when △b is taken as～1 fm.     

Properties of nano-scale soliton-like excitations in two-dimensional lattice layers

Nano-scale soliton-like supersonic, intrinsic localized excitations in two-dimensional atomic anharmonic lattice layers are here considered. We study the propagation, the velocity and other soliton-like features at head-on collisions of such lattice excitations created by using suitable initial mechanical and thermal conditions. Noteworthy is that narrow, highly-energetic solitons moving along one lattice row are very robust, accompanied by weak anti-phase oscillations in the lateral direction.     

Large transverse momentum dilepton Production in heavy ion collisions with two-photon processes

The cold component of large transverse momentum dilepton production via semi-coherent two-photon interaction is calculated.The cold contribution is essential to the dilepton spectra in the soft region for different mass bins.The results are compared with the PHENIX experimental data at RHIC,and we find that the modification of semi-coherent two-photon processes is more evident with the rising dilepton mass bins.     

Statistics of inter-particle distances and angles in plasmas

Accurate treatment of the plasma density effects requires a detailed knowledge of the spatial distribution of individual ions around a test ion. In the present work, rigorous expressions are derived for the main 2- and 3-particle spatial distribution functions involving the nearest neighbor (NN) and the next-nearest neighbor (NNN) ions. These expressions, valid for both ideal and nonideal plasmas, present the distributions as functionals of the potentials U _NN and U _NNN at the nearest and next-nearest ion locations. All of the distribution functions except one are derived and discussed in the present work for the first time ever. For utilization of our results in practical calculations, we suggest semi-empirical expressions for U _NN and U _NNN in the ion-ion coupling parameter range 0 ?Γ < 1. In order to test the accuracy of our expressions for U _NN and U _NNN we conduct Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. The simulations utilize the pure Coulomb particle-particle interaction potentials, regularized at close range to avoid classical Coulomb collapse, and are free from the assumptions made to find U _NN and U _NNN. Thus, the results of the MD simulations provide an independent test of our theoretical results. Excellent agreement has been found between the results of the theory and of the MD simulations. Finally, we outline the implications of the present findings on the problem of tunneling and charge exchange in dense plasmas. Received 27 October 2000 and Received in final form 30 January 2001     

Scaling of hadron masses and widths in thermal models for ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions

By means of a simple rescaling, modifications of hadron masses and widths are incorporated into the thermal analysis of particle ratios in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We find that moderate, up to 20%, changes of hadron masses do not spoil the quality of the fits, which remain as good as those obtained without modifications. Larger changes are not likely. The fits with the modified masses yield modified values of the optimal temperature and baryon chemical potential. In particular, with decreasing masses of all hadrons (except for pseudo-Goldstone bosons) the fitted values of the temperature and the baryon chemical potential are lowered, with the change approximately proportional to the scaling of masses. In addition, we find that the broadening of the hadron widths by less than a factor of two practically does not affect the fits.     

Effect of shell structure on energy dissipation in heavy-ion collisions

The effect of shell structure on the distribution of the excitation energy between fragments of the deep inelastic collisions is analysed in the microscopic approach. It is shown that the density of the single-particle levels of the proton and neutron subsystems near the Fermi surface determines the ratio between the excitation energies of fragments at the initial stage of the collision. It is shown also that the shell structure strongly influences the correlations between the width of the charge distributions and the total kinetic energy losses. Calculations are performed for the ^40,48Ca+²⁴⁸Cm reactions. The results obtained suggest a possible interpretation for the observed concentration of the excitation energy in the light fragment in deep inelastic collisions for a wide range of the total kinetic energy losses. Received: 27 July 1999 / Accepted: 29 March 2000     

Hadron production and phase changes in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We study soft hadron production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions in a wide range of reaction energy, 4.8 GeV < < 200 GeV, and make predictions about yields of particles using the statistical hadronization model. In fits to experimental data, we obtain both the statistical parameters as well as physical properties of the hadron source. We identify the properties of the fireball at the critical energy threshold, 6.26 GeV < < 7.61 GeV, marking for higher energies the hadronization of an entropy-rich phase. In terms of the chemical composition, one sees a phase which at low energy is chemically under-saturated, and which turns into a chemically over-saturated state persisting up to the maximum accessible energy. Assuming that there is no change in physical mechanisms in the energy range 15 > ≥200 GeV, we use continuity of particle yields and statistical parameters to predict the hadron production at = 62.4 GeV, and obtain total yields of hadrons at = 130 GeV. We consider, in depth, the pattern we uncover within the hadronization condition, and discuss possible mechanisms associated with the identified rapid change in system properties at . We propose that the chemically over-saturated 2 + 1 flavor hadron matter system undergoes a 1st-order phase transition.