Recent experiments at RHIC and LHC have demonstrated that there are excellent opportunities to produce light baryonic clusters of exotic matter (strange and anti-matter) in ultra-relativistic ion collisions. Within the hybrid-transport model UrQMD we show that the coalescence mechanism can naturally explain the production of these clusters in the ALICE experiment at LHC. As a consequence of this mechanism we predict the rapidity domains where the yields of such clusters are much larger than the observed one at midrapidity. This new phenomenon can lead to unique methods for producing exotic nuclei.
A hybrid (hydrodynamics + hadronic transport) theoretical framework is assembled to model the bulk dynamics of relativistic heavy-ion collisions at energies accessible in the Beam Energy Scan (BES) program at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and the NA61/SHINE experiment at CERN. The systems energy-momentum tensor and net baryon current are evolved according to relativistic hydrodynamics with finite shear viscosity and non-zero net baryon diffusion. Our hydrodynamic description is matched to a hadronic transport model in the dilute region. With this fully integrated theoretical framework, we present a pilot study of the hadronic chemistry, particle spectra, and anisotropic flow. Phenomenological effects of a non-zero net-baryon current and its diffusion on hadronic observables are presented for the first time. The importance of the hadronic transport phase is also investigated.
We investigate the possibilities of using measurements in present and future experiments on heavy ion collisions to answer some longstanding problems in hadronic physics, namely identifying hadronic molecular states and exotic hadrons with multiquark components. The yields of a selected set of exotic hadron candidates in relativistic heavy ion collisions are discussed in the coalescence model in comparison with the statistical model. We find that the yield of a hadron is typically an order of magnitude smaller when it is a compact multiquark state, compared to that of an excited hadronic state with normal quark numbers. We also find that some loosely bound hadronic molecules are formed more abundantly than the statistical model prediction by a factor of two or more. Moreover, due to the significant numbers of charm and bottom quarks produced at RHIC and even larger numbers expected at LHC, some of the proposed heavy exotic hadrons could be produced with sufficient abundance for detection, making it possible to study these new exotic hadrons in heavy ion collisions.
Heavy ion collisions (HIC) at high energies are excellent ways for producing heavy hadrons and composite particles. With upgraded detectors at RHIC and LHC, it has become possible to measure hadrons beyond their ground states. Therefore, HIC provide a new method for studying exotic hadrons that are either hadronic molecular states or compact multiquark systems. Because their structures are related to the fundamental properties of QCD, studying exotic hadrons is currently one of the most active areas of research in hadron physics. Experiments carried out at various accelerator facilities have indicated that some exotic hadrons may have already been produced. The present review is a summary of the current understanding of a selected set of exotic particle candidates that can be potentially measured in HIC. It also includes discussions on the production of exotic hadrons in HIC based on the coalescence and statistical models. A more detailed discussion leads to the conclusion that the yield of a hadron is typically an order of magnitude smaller when it is a compact multiquark state than that of an excited hadronic state with normal quark numbers and/or a molecular configuration. Attention is also given to some of the proposed heavy exotic hadrons that could be produced with sufficient abundance in HIC because of the significant numbers of charm and bottom quarks produced at RHIC and LHC, making it possible to study them in these experiments. Further included in the discussion are the general formalism for the coalescence model that involves resonance particles and its implication on the present estimated yield for resonance production. Finally, a review is given on recent studies to constrain the hadron-hadron interaction through correlation measurements in HIC and their implications on the interpretation and the possible existence of exotic states in hadronic interactions.
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.