No Arabic abstract
We propose an scenario to study, from a dynamical point of view, the thermal recombination of quarks in the midsts of a relativistic heavy-ion collision. We coin the term dynamical quark recombination to refer to the process of quark-antiquark and three-quark clustering, to form mesons and baryons, respectively, as a function of energy density. Using the string-flip model we show that the probabilities to form such clusters differ. We apply these ideas to the calculation of the proton and pion spectra in a Bjorken-like scenario that incorporates the evolution of these probabilities with proper time and compute the proton to pion ratio, comparing to recent RHIC data at the highest energy. We show that for a standard choice of parameters, this ratio reaches one, though the maximum is very sensitive to the initial evolution proper time.
We show that the single, non-photonic electron nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}^e$ is affected by the thermal enhancement of the heavy-baryon to heavy-meson ratio in relativistic heavy-ion collisions with respect to proton-proton collisions. We make use of the dynamical quark recombination model to compute such ratio and show that this produces a sizable suppression factor for $R_{AA}^e$ at intermediate transverse momenta. We argue that such suppression factor needs to be considered, in addition to the energy loss contribution, in calculations of $R_{AA}^e$
Beginning with precise data on the ratio of structure functions in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) from $^3$He and $^3$H, collected on the domain $0.19 leq x_B leq 0.83$, where $x_B$ is the Bjorken scaling variable, we employ a robust method for extrapolating such data to arrive at a model-independent result for the $x_B=1$ value of the ratio of neutron and proton structure functions. Combining this with information obtained in analyses of DIS from nuclei, corrected for target-structure dependence, we arrive at a prediction for the protons valence-quark ratio: $left. d_v/u_v right|_{x_Bto 1} = 0.230 (57)$. Requiring consistency with this result presents a challenge to many descriptions of proton structure.
Charmonium production at heavy-ion colliders is considered within the comovers interaction model. The formalism is extended by including possible secondary J/psi production through recombination and an estimate of recombination effects is made with no free parameters involved. The comovers interaction model also includes a comprehensive treatment of initial-state nuclear effects, which are discussed in the context of such high energies. With these tools, the model properly describes the centrality and the rapidity dependence of experimental data at RHIC energy, $sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV, for both Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions. Predictions for LHC, $sqrt{s}$ = 5.5 TeV, are presented and the assumptions and extrapolations involved are discussed.
We calculate the Gaussian radius parameters of the pion-emitting source in high energy heavy ion collisions, assuming a first order phase transition from a thermalized Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) to a gas of hadrons. Such a model leads to a very long-lived dissipative hadronic rescattering phase which dominates the properties of the two-pion correlation functions. The radii are found to depend only weakly on the thermalization time tau_i, the critical temperature T_c (and thus the latent heat), and the specific entropy of the QGP. The dissipative hadronic stage enforces large variations of the pion emission times around the mean. Therefore, the model calculations suggest a rapid increase of R_out/R_side as a function of K_T if a thermalized QGP were formed.
Results of a new two-particle correlation analysis of central Pb+Au collision data at 158 GeV per nucleon are presented. The emphasis is put on pion-proton correlations and on the dependence of the two-pion correlation radii on the azimuthal emission angle with respect to the reaction plane.