No Arabic abstract
We calculate the second order viscous correction to the kinetic distribution, $delta f_{(2)}$, and use this result in a hydrodynamic simulation of heavy ion collisions to determine the complete second order correction to the harmonic spectrum, $v_n$. At leading order in a conformal fluid, the first viscous correction is determined by one scalar function, $chi_{0p}$. One moment of this scalar function is constrained by the shear viscosity. At second order in a conformal fluid, we find that $delta f(p)$ can be characterized by two scalar functions of momentum, $chi_{1p}$ and $chi_{2p}$. The momentum dependence of these functions is largely determined by the kinematics of the streaming operator. Again, one moment of these functions is constrained by the parameters of second order hydrodynamics, $tau_pi$ and $lambda_1$. The effect of $delta f_{(2)}$ on the integrated flow is small (up to $v_4$), but is quite important for the higher harmonics at modestly-large $p_T$. Generally, $delta f_{(2)}$ increases the value of $v_n$ at a given $p_T$, and is most important in small systems.
Recently lots of efforts have been made to obtain the next to leading order and Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal corrections to the thermal dilepton emission rate in perturbative QCD. Here we apply these results to the plasma created in heavy ion collisions and see wether these corrections improve the comparison between theoretical calculations and experimental results for the invariant mass dependence of the dilepton emission rate. In particular, we simulate the quark-gluon plasma produced at RHIC and LHC using a 2+1-dimensional viscous hydro model. We compare our results to STAR experiment and comment on the need for a non-perturbative determination of the dilepton rate at low invariant mass.
We investigate the effects of finite baryon density and temperature on the bulk properties of matter formed in relativistic heavy ion collisions within second-order dissipative hydrodynamics. The relativistic fluid evolution equations for heat flow and shear stress tensor are derived from kinetic theory by using Grads 14-moment approximation for the single-particle phase-space distribution function. The new equations provide a number of additional terms associated with heat-shear couplings as compared to the existing derivations based on entropy principle. The dissipative equations are encoded in non-boost-invariant hydrodynamic model simulation and studied for the evolution of high baryon density matter encountered at the beam energy scan program at RHIC. We find that thermal dissipation dominates shear pressure in defining the bulk observables at the low energy but its effect diminishes at ultra-relativistic energies.
The principal component analysis of flow correlations in heavy-ion collisions is studied. The correlation matrix of harmonic flow is generalized to correlations involving several different flow vectors. The method can be applied to study the nonlinear coupling between different harmonic modes in a double differential way in transverse momentum or pseudorapidity. The procedure is illustrated with results from the hydrodynamic model applied to Pb+Pb collisions at $sqrt{s}=2760$GeV. Three examples of generalized correlations matrices in transverse momentum are constructed corresponding to the coupling of $v_2^2$ and $v_4$, of $v_2v_3$ and $v_5$, or of $v_2^3$, $v_3^3$, and $v_6$. The principal component decomposition is applied to the correlation matrices and the dominant modes are calculated.
The study of high energy collisions between heavy nuclei is a field unto itself, distinct from nuclear and particle physics. A defining aspect of heavy ion physics is the importance of a bulk, self-interacting system with a rich space-time substructure. I focus on the issue of timescales in heavy ion collisions, starting with proof from low-energy collisions that femtoscopy can, indeed, measure very long timescales. I then discuss the relativistic case, where detailed measurements over three orders of magnitude in energy reveal a timescale increase that might be due to a first-order phase transition. I discuss also consistency in evolution timescales as determined from traditional longitudinal sizes and a novel analysis using shape information.
We study charm production in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions by using the Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach. The initial charm quarks are produced by the PYTHIA event generator tuned to fit the transverse momentum spectrum and rapidity distribution of charm quarks from Fixed-Order Next-to-Leading Logarithm (FONLL) calculations. The produced charm quarks scatter in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) with the off-shell partons whose masses and widths are given by the Dynamical Quasi-Particle Model (DQPM), which reproduces the lattice QCD equation-of-state in thermal equilibrium. The relevant cross sections are calculated in a consistent way by employing the effective propagators and couplings from the DQPM. Close to the critical energy density of the phase transition, the charm quarks are hadronized into $D$ mesons through coalescence and/or fragmentation. The hadronized $D$ mesons then interact with the various hadrons in the hadronic phase with cross sections calculated in an effective lagrangian approach with heavy-quark spin symmetry. The nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$ and the elliptic flow $v_2$ of $D^0$ mesons from PHSD are compared with the experimental data from the STAR Collaboration for Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}$ =200 GeV and to the ALICE data for Pb+Pb collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}$ =2.76 TeV. We find that in the PHSD the energy loss of $D$ mesons at high $p_T$ can be dominantly attributed to partonic scattering while the actual shape of $R_{AA}$ versus $p_T$ reflects the heavy-quark hadronization scenario, i.e. coalescence versus fragmentation. Also the hadronic rescattering is important for the $R_{AA}$ at low $p_T$ and enhances the $D$-meson elliptic flow $v_2$.