No Arabic abstract
A quark interaction with topologically nontrivial gluonic fields, instantons and sphalerons, violates P~ and CP~ symmetry. In the strong magnetic field of a noncentral nuclear collision such interactions lead to the charge separation along the magnetic field, the so-called chiral magnetic effect (CME). Recent results from the STAR collaboration on charge dependent correlations are consistent with theoretical expectations for CME but may have contributions from other effects, which prevents definitive interpretation of the data. Here I propose to use central body-body $U+U$ collisions to disentangle correlations due to CME from possible background correlations due to elliptic flow. Further more quantitative studies can be performed with collision of isobaric beams.
We demonstrate that the prolate shape of the Uranium nucleus generates anti-correlation between spectator asymmetry and initial state ellipticity of the collision zone, providing a way to constrain the initial event shape in U+U collisions. As an application, we show that this can be used to separate the background contribution due to flow from the signals of chiral magnetic effect.
The quark-gluon matter produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions may contain local domains in which P and CP symmetries are not preserved. When coupled with an external magnetic field, such P- and CP-odd domains will generate electric currents along the magnetic field --- a phenomenon called the chiral magnetic effect (CME). Recently, the STAR Collaboration at RHIC and the ALICE Collaboration at the LHC released data of charge-dependent azimuthal-angle correlators with features consistent with the CME expectation. However, the experimental observable is contaminated with significant background contributions from elliptic-flow-driven effects, which makes the interpretation of the data ambiguous. In this Letter, we show that the collisions of isobaric nuclei, $^{96}_{44}$Ru + $^{96}_{44}$Ru and $^{96}_{40}$Zr + $^{96}_{40}$Zr, provide an ideal tool to disentangle the CME signal from the background effects. Our simulation demonstrates that the two collision types at $sqrt{s_{rm NN}}=200$ GeV have more than $10%$ difference in the CME signal and less than $2%$ difference in the elliptic-flow-driven backgrounds for the centrality range of $20-60%$.
The Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) is a remarkable phenomenon that stems from highly nontrivial interplay of QCD chiral symmetry, axial anomaly, and gluonic topology. It is of fundamental importance to search for the CME in experiments. The heavy ion collisions provide a unique environment where a hot chiral-symmetric quark-gluon plasma is created, gluonic topological fluctuations generate chirality imbalance, and very strong magnetic fields $|vec{bf B}|sim m_pi^2$ are present during the early stage of such collisions. Significant efforts have been made to look for CME signals in heavy ion collision experiments. In this contribution we give a brief overview on the status of such efforts.
The non-central Cu + Au collisions can create strong out-of-plane magnetic fields and in-plane electric fields. By using the HIJING model, we study the general properties of the electromagnetic fields in Cu + Au collisions at 200 GeV and their impacts on the charge-dependent two-particle correlator $gamma_{q_1q_2}=<cos(phi_1+phi_2-2psi_{RP})>$ (see main text for definition) which was used for the detection of the chiral magnetic effect (CME). Compared with Au + Au collisions, we find that the in-plane electric fields in Cu + Au collisions can strongly suppress the two-particle correlator or even reverse its sign if the lifetime of the electric fields is long. Combining with the expectation that if $gamma_{q_1q_2}$ is induced by elliptic-flow driven effects we would not see such strong suppression or reversion, our results suggest to use Cu + Au collisions to test CME and understand the mechanisms that underlie $gamma_{q_1q_2}$.
Quantal diffusion mechanism of nucleon exchange is studied in the central collisions of $^{238}$U + $^{238}$U in the framework of the stochastic mean-field (SMF) approach. For bombarding energies considered in this work, the di-nuclear structure is maintained during the collision. Hence, it is possible to describe nucleon exchange as a diffusion process for mass and charge asymmetry. Quantal neutron and proton diffusion coefficients, including memory effects, are extracted from the SMF approach and the primary fragment distributions are calculated.