No Arabic abstract
A systematic analysis of correlations between different orders of $p_T$-differential flow is presented, including mode coupling effects in flow vectors, correlations between flow angles (a.k.a. event-plane correlations), and correlations between flow magnitudes, all of which were previously studied with integrated flows. We find that the mode coupling effects among differential flows largely mirror those among the corresponding integrated flows, except at small transverse momenta where mode coupling contributions are small. For the fourth- and fifth-order flow vectors $V_4$ and $V_5$ we argue that the event plane correlations can be understood as the ratio between the mode coupling contributions to these flows and and the flow magnitudes. We also find that for $V_4$ and $V_5$ the linear response contribution scales linearly with the corresponding cumulant-defined eccentricities but not with the standard eccentricities.
A QCD phase transition may reflect in a inhomogeneous decoupling surface of hadrons produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We show that due to the non-linear dependence of the particle densities on the temperature and baryon-chemical potential such inhomogeneities should be visible even in the integrated, inclusive abundances. We analyze experimental data from Pb+Pb collisions at CERN-SPS and Au+Au collisions at BNL-RHIC to determine the amplitude of inhomogeneities.
Higher order symmetric cumulants of global collective observables in heavy ion collisions are studied. The symmetric cumulants can be straightforwardly constructed for scalar observables: the average transverse momentum, the multiplicity, and the squares of harmonic flow vectors. Third and fourth order cumulants are calculated in the hydrodynamic model. A linear predictor of the average transverse momentum and harmonic flow coefficients in a collision is used to predict the value of the cumulants from the moments of the initial distribution. The symmetric cumulants divided by the averages (or the standard deviations) of the considered observables can be used as a fine tool to study correlations present in the initial state of the collision.
We study the single electron spectra from $D-$ and $B-$meson semileptonic decays in Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{rm NN}}=$200, 62.4, and 19.2 GeV by employing the parton-hadron-string dynamics (PHSD) transport approach that has been shown to reasonably describe the charm dynamics at RHIC and LHC energies on a microscopic level. In this approach the initial heavy quarks are produced by using the PYTHIA which is tuned to reproduce the FONLL calculations. The produced heavy quarks interact with off-shell massive partons in QGP with scattering cross sections which are calculated in the dynamical quasi-particle model (DQPM). At energy densities close to the critical energy density the heavy quarks are hadronized into heavy mesons through either coalescence or fragmentation. After hadronization the heavy mesons interact with the light hadrons by employing the scattering cross sections from an effective Lagrangian. The final heavy mesons then produce single electrons through semileptonic decay. We find that the PHSD approach well describes the nuclear modification factor $R_{rm AA}$ and elliptic flow $v_2$ of single electrons in d+Au and Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{rm NN}}=$ 200 GeV and the elliptic flow in Au+Au reactions at $sqrt{s_{rm NN}}=$ 62.4 GeV from the PHENIX collaboration, however, the large $R_{rm AA}$ at $sqrt{s_{rm NN}}=$ 62.4 GeV is not described at all. Furthermore, we make predictions for the $R_{rm AA}$ of $D-$mesons and of single electrons at the lower energy of $sqrt{s_{rm NN}}=$ 19.2 GeV. Additionally, the medium modification of the azimuthal angle $phi$ between a heavy quark and a heavy antiquark is studied. We find that the transverse flow enhances the azimuthal angular distributions close to $phi=$ 0 because the heavy flavors strongly interact with nuclear medium in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and almost flow with the bulk matter.
The dilepton transverse momentum spectra and invariant mass spectra for low $p_T <0.15$~GeV/c in Au+Au collisions of different centralities at $sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV are studied within the parton-hadron-string dynamics (PHSD) transport approach. The PHSD describes the whole evolution of the system on a microscopic basis, incorporates hadronic and partonic degrees-of-freedom, the dynamical hadronization of partons and hadronic rescattering. For dilepton production in p+p, p+A and A+A reactions the PHSD incorporates the leading hadronic and partonic channels (also for heavy flavors) and includes in-medium effects such as a broadening of the vector meson spectral functions in hadronic matter and a modification of initial heavy-flavor correlations by interactions with the partonic and hadronic medium. The transport calculations reproduce well the momentum integrated invariant mass spectra from the STAR Collaboration for minimum bias Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV, while the description of the STAR data - when gating on low $p_T < 0.15$ GeV/c - is getting worse when going from central to peripheral collisions. An analysis of the transverse momentum spectra shows that the data for peripheral (60-80%) collisions are well reproduced for $p_T>0.2$ GeV/c while the strong peak at low $p_T < 0.15$ GeV/c, that shows up in the experimental data for the mass bins ($0.4 < M < 0.7$ GeV and $1.2 < M < 2.6$ GeV), is fully missed by the PHSD and cannot be explained by the standard in-medium effects. This provides a new puzzle for microscopic descriptions of low $p_T$ dilepton data from the STAR Collaboration.
The correlation between the harmonic flow and the transverse flow in relativistic heavy ion collisions is calculated in the hydrodynamic model. The partial correlation coefficient, corrected for fluctuations of multiplicity, is compared to experimental data. Estimators of the final transverse and harmonic flow are used to predict the value of the correlation coefficient from the moments of the initial distribution. A good description of the hydrodynamic simulation results is obtained if the estimator for the final transverse flow, besides the most important transverse size and entropy, includes also the eccentricities.