Tsallis Statistics was used to investigate the non-Boltzmann distribution of particle spectra and their dependence on particle species and beam energy in the relativistic heavy-ion collisions at SPS and RHIC. Produced particles are assumed to acquire radial flow and be of non-extensive statistics at freeze-out. J/psi and the particles containing strangeness were examined separately to study their radial flow and freeze-out. We found that the strange hadrons approach equilibrium quickly from peripheral to central A+A collisions and they tend to decouple earlier from the system than the light hadrons but with the same final radial flow. These results provide an alternative picture of freeze-outs: a thermalized system is produced at partonic phase; the hadronic scattering at later stage is not enough to maintain the system in equilibrium and does not increase the radial flow of the copiously produced light hadrons. The J/psi in Pb+Pb collisions at SPS is consistent with early decoupling and obtains little radial flow. The J/psi spectra at RHIC are also inconsistent with the bulk flow profile.
We have implemented the Tsallis statistics in a Blast-Wave model and applied it to mid-rapidity transverse-momentum spectra of identified particles measured at RHIC. This new Tsallis Blast-Wave function fits the RHIC data very well for $p_T<$3 GeV/$c$. We observed that the collective flow velocity starts from zero in p+p and peripheral Au+Au collisions growing to 0.470 $pm$ 0.009($c$) in central Au+Au collisions. The $(q-1)$ parameter, which characterizes the degree of non-equilibrium in a system, changes from $0.100pm0.003$ in p+p to $0.015pm0.005$ in central Au+Au collisions, indicating an evolution from a highly non-equilibrated system in p+p collisions toward an almost thermalized system in central Au+Au collisions. The temperature and collective velocity are well described by a quadratic dependence on $(q-1)$. Two sets of parameters in our Tsallis Blast-Wave model are required to describe the meson and baryon groups separately in p+p collisions while one set of parameters appears to fit all spectra in central Au+Au collisions.
The two-particle angular correlation functions, $R_2$, of pions, kaons, and protons in Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 7.7, 11.5, 14.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4, and 200 GeV were measured by the STAR experiment at RHIC. These correlations were measured for both like-sign and unlike-sign charge combinations and versus the centrality. The correlations of pions and kaons show the expected near-side ({it i.e.}, at small relative angles) peak resulting from short-range mechanisms. The amplitudes of these short-range correlations decrease with increasing beam energy. However, the proton correlation functions exhibit strong anticorrelations in the near-side region. This behavior is observed for the first time in an A+A collision system. The observed anticorrelation is $p_{T}$-independent and decreases with increasing beam energy and centrality. The experimental results are also compared to the Monte Carlo models UrQMD, Hijing, and AMPT.
We present measurements of net charge fluctuations in $Au + Au$ collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}} = $ 19.6, 62.4, 130, and 200 GeV, $Cu + Cu$ collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}} = $ 62.4, 200 GeV, and $p + p$ collisions at $sqrt{s} = $ 200 GeV using the dynamical net charge fluctuations measure $ u_{+-{rm,dyn}}$. We observe that the dynamical fluctuations are non-zero at all energies and exhibit a modest dependence on beam energy. A weak system size dependence is also observed. We examine the collision centrality dependence of the net charge fluctuations and find that dynamical net charge fluctuations violate $1/N_{ch}$ scaling, but display approximate $1/N_{part}$ scaling. We also study the azimuthal and rapidity dependence of the net charge correlation strength and observe strong dependence on the azimuthal angular range and pseudorapidity widths integrated to measure the correlation.
The nuclear modification factor is derived using Tsallis non-extensive statistics in relaxation time approximation. The variation of nuclear modification factor with transverse momentum for different values of non-extensive parameter, $q$, is also observed. The experimental data from RHIC and LHC are analysed in the framework of Tsallis non-extensive statistics in a relaxation time approximation. It is shown that the proposed approach explains the $R_{AA}$ of all particles over a wide range of transverse momenta but doesnt seem to describe the rise in $R_{AA}$ at very high transverse momenta.
A novel approach, the identity method, was used for particle identification and the study of fluctuations of particle yield ratios in Pb+Pb collisions at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). This procedure allows to unfold the moments of the unknown multiplicity distributions of protons (p), kaons (K), pions ($pi$) and electrons (e). Using these moments the excitation function of the fluctuation measure $ u_{text{text{dyn}}}$[A,B] was measured, with A and B denoting different particle types. The obtained energy dependence of $ u_{text{dyn}}$ agrees with previously published NA49 results on the related measure $sigma_{text{dyn}}$. Moreover, $ u_{text{dyn}}$ was found to depend on the phase space coverage for [K,p] and [K,$pi$] pairs. This feature most likely explains the reported differences between measurements of NA49 and those of STAR in central Au+Au collisions.