No Arabic abstract
The study of relativistic heavy-ion collisions is an important part of the LHC research programme at CERN. This emerging field of research focuses on the study of matter under extreme conditions of temperature, density, and pressure. Here we present an introduction to the general aspects of relativistic heavy-ion physics. Afterwards we give an overview of the accelerator facility at CERN and then a quick look at the ALICE project as a dedicated experiment for heavy-ion collisions.
We develop a combined hydro-kinetic approach which incorporates a hydrodynamical expansion of the systems formed in textit{A}+textit{A} collisions and their dynamical decoupling described by escape probabilities. The method corresponds to a generalized relaxation time ($tau_{text{rel}}$) approximation for the Boltzmann equation applied to inhomogeneous expanding systems; at small $tau_{text{rel}}$ it also allows one to catch the viscous effects in hadronic component - hadron-resonance gas. We demonstrate how the approximation of sudden freeze-out can be obtained within this dynamical picture of continuous emission and find that hypersurfaces, corresponding to a sharp freeze-out limit, are momentum dependent. The pion $m_{T}$ spectra are computed in the developed hydro-kinetic model, and compared with those obtained from ideal hydrodynamics with the Cooper-Frye isothermal prescription. Our results indicate that there does not exist a universal freeze-out temperature for pions with different momenta, and support an earlier decoupling of higher $p_{T}$ particles. By performing numerical simulations for various initial conditions and equations of state we identify several characteristic features of the bulk QCD matter evolution preferred in view of the current analysis of heavy ion collisions at RHIC energies.
We review integrated dynamical approaches to describe heavy ion reaction as a whole at ultrarelativistic energies. Since final observables result from all the history of the reaction, it is important to describe all the stages of the reaction to obtain the properties of the quark gluon plasma from experimental data. As an example of these approaches, we develop an integrated dynamical model, which is composed of a fully (3+1) dimensional ideal hydrodynamic model with the state-of-the-art equation of state based on lattice QCD, and subsequent hadronic cascade in the late stage. Initial conditions are obtained employing Monte Car
We develop for charmed hadron production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions a comprehensive coalescence model that includes an extensive set of $s$ and $p$-wave hadronic states as well as the strict energy-momentum conservation, which ensures the boost invariance of the coalescence probability and the thermal limit of the produced hadron spectrum. By combining our hadronization scheme with an advanced Langevin-hydrodynamics model that incorporates both elastic and inelastic energy loss of heavy quarks inside the dynamical quark-gluon plasma, we obtain a successful description of the $p_mathrm{T}$-integrated and differential $Lambda_c/D^0$ and $D_s/D^0$ ratios measured at RHIC and the LHC. We find that including the effect of radial flow of the medium is essential for describing the enhanced $Lambda_c/D^0$ ratio observed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We also find that the puzzling larger $Lambda_c/D^0$ ratio observed in Au+Au collisions at RHIC than in Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC is due to the interplay between the effects of the QGP radial flow and the charm quark transverse momentum spectrum at hadronization. Our study further suggests that charmed hadrons have larger sizes in medium than in vacuum.
Based on a generalized side-jump formalism for massless chiral fermions, which naturally takes into account the spin-orbit coupling in the scattering of two chiral fermions and the chiral vortical effect in a rotating chiral fermion matter, we have developed a covariant and total angular momentum conserved chiral transport model to study both the global and local polarizations of this matter. For a system of massless quarks of random spin orientations and finite vorticity in a box, we have demonstrated that the model can exactly conserve the total angular momentum of the system and dynamically generate the quark spin polarization expected from a thermally equilibrated quark matter. Using this model to study the spin polarization in relativistic heavy-ion collision, we have found that the local quark spin polarizations depend strongly on the reference frame where they are evaluated as a result of the nontrivial axial charge distribution caused by the chiral vortical effect. We have further shown that because of the anomalous orbital or side-jump contribution to the quark spin polarization, the local quark polarizations calculated in the medium rest frame are qualitatively consistent with the local polarizations of Lambda hyperons measured in experiments.
We investigate the two-particle intensity correlation function of $Lambda$ in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We find that the behavior of the $LambdaLambda$ correlation function at small relative momenta is fairly sensitive to the interaction potential and collective flows. By comparing the results of different source functions and potentials, we explore the effect of intrinsic collective motions on the correlation function. We find that the recent STAR data gives a strong constraint on the scattering length and effective range of $LambdaLambda$ interaction as, $-1.8 mathrm{fm}^{-1} < 1/a_0 < -0.8 mathrm{fm}^{-1}$ and $3.5 mathrm{fm} < r_mathrm{eff} < 7 mathrm{fm}$, respectively,if $Lambda$ samples do not include feed-down contribution from long-lived particles. We find that feed-down correction for $Sigma^0$ decay reduces the sensitivity of the correlation function to the detail of the $LambdaLambda$ interaction. As a result, we obtain a weaker constraint $1/a_0 <-0.8$ fm$^{-1}$. Implication for the signal of existence of $H$-dibaryon is discussed. Comparison with the scattering parameters obtained from the double $Lambda$ hypernucleus may reveal in-medium effects in the $LambdaLambda$ interaction.