No Arabic abstract
The physical processes behind the production of light nuclei in heavy ion collisions are unclear. The nice theoretical description of experimental yields by thermal models conflicts with the very small binding energies of the observed states, being fragile in such a hot and dense environment. Other available ideas are delayed production via coalescence, or a cooling of the system after the chemical freeze-out according a Saha equation, or a `quench instead of a thermal freeze-out. A recently derived prescription of an (interacting) Hagedorn gas is applied to consolidate the above pictures. The tabulation of decay rates of Hagedorn states into light nuclei allows to calculate yields usually unaccessable due to very poor Monte Carlo statistics. Decay yields of stable hadrons and light nuclei are calculated. While the scale-free decays of Hagedorn states alone are not compatible with the experimental data, a thermalized hadron and Hagedorn state gas is able to describe the experimental data. Applying a cooling of the system according a Saha-equation with conservation of nucleons and anti-nucleons in number leads to (nearly) temperature independent yields, thus a production of the light nuclei at temperatures much lower than the chemical freeze-out temperature is possible.
A novel, unorthodox picture of the dynamics of heavy ion collisions is developed using the concept of Hagedorn states. A prescription of the bootstrap of Hagedorn states respecting the conserved quantum numbers baryon number B, strangeness S, isospin I is implememted into the GiBUU transport model. Using a strangeness saturation suppression factor suitable for nucleon-nucleon-collisions, recent experimental data for the strangeness production by the HADES collaboration in Au+Au and Ar+KCl is reasonable well described. The experimental observed exponential slopes of the energy distributions are nicely reproduced. Thus, a dynamical model using Hagedorn resonance states, supplemented by a strangeness saturation suppression factor, is able to explain essential features (multiplicities, exponential slope) of experimental data for strangeness production in nucleus-nucleus collisions close to threshold.
A study of the horn in the particle ratio $K^+/pi^+$ for central heavy-ion collisions as a function of the collision energy $sqrt{s}$ is presented. We analyse two different interpretations: the onset of deconfinement and the transition from a baryon- to a meson-dominated hadron gas. We use a realistic equation of state (EOS), which includes both hadron and quark degrees-of-freedom. The Taub-adiabate procedure is followed to determine the system at the early stage. Our results do not support an explanation of the horn as due to the onset of deconfinement. Using only hadronic EOS we reproduced the energy dependence of the $K^+/pi^+$ and $Lambda/pi^-$ ratios employing an experimental parametrisation of the freeze-out curve. We observe a transition between a baryon- and a meson-dominated regime; however, the reproduction of the $K^+/pi^+$ and $Lambda/pi^-$ ratios as a function of $sqrt{s}$ is not completely satisfying. We finally propose a new idea for the interpretation of the data, the roll-over scheme, in which the scalar meson field $sigma$ has not reached the thermal equilibrium at freeze-out. The rool-over scheme for the equilibration of the $sigma$-field is based on the inflation mechanism. The non-equilibrium evolution of the scalar field influences the particle production, e.g. $K^+/pi^+$, however, the fixing of the free parameters in this model is still an open issue.
We study the strange vector meson ($K^*, bar K^*$) dynamics in relativistic heavy-ion collisions based on the microscopic Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach which incorporates partonic and hadronic degrees-of-freedom, a phase transition from hadronic to partonic matter - Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) - and a dynamical hadronization of quarks and antiquarks as well as final hadronic interactions. We investigate the role of in-medium effects on the $K^*, bar K^*$ meson dynamics by employing Breit-Wigner spectral functions for the $K^*$s with self-energies obtained from a self-consistent coupled-channel G-matrix approach. Furthermore, we confront the PHSD calculations with experimental data for p+p, Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at energies up to $sqrt{{s}_{NN}} = 200$~GeV. Our analysis shows that at relativistic energies most of the final $K^*$s (observed experimentally) are produced during the late hadronic phase, dominantly by the $K+ pi to K^*$ channel, such that the fraction of the $K^*$s from the QGP is small and can hardly be reconstructed from the final observables. The influence of the in-medium effects on the $K^*$ dynamics at RHIC energies is rather modest due to their dominant production at low baryon densities (but high meson densities), however, it increases with decreasing beam energy. Moreover, we find that the additional cut on the invariant mass region of the $K^*$ further influences the shape and the height of the final spectra. This imposes severe constraints on the interpretation of the experimental results.
Heavy ion collisions provide a unique opportunity to study the nature of X(3872) compared with electron-positron and proton-proton (antiproton) collisions. With the abundant charm pairs produced in heavy-ion collisions, the production of multicharm hadrons and molecules can be enhanced by the combination of charm and anticharm quarks in the medium. We investigate the centrality and momentum dependence of X(3872) in heavy-ion collisions via the Langevin equation and instant coalescence model (LICM). When X(3872) is treated as a compact tetraquark state, the tetraquarks are produced via the coalescence of heavy and light quarks near the quantum chromodynamic (QCD) phase transition due to the restoration of the heavy quark potential at $Trightarrow T_c$. In the molecular scenario, loosely bound X(3872) is produced via the coalescence of $D^0$-$bar D^{*0}$ mesons in a hadronic medium after kinetic freeze-out. The phase space distributions of the charm quarks and D mesons in a bulk medium are studied with the Langevin equation, while the coalescence probability between constituent particles is controlled by the Wigner function, which encodes the internal structure of the formed particle. First, we employ the LICM to explain both $D^0$ and $J/psi$ production as a benchmark. Then, we give predictions regarding X(3872) production. We find that the total yield of tetraquark is several times larger than the molecular production in Pb-Pb collisions. Although the geometric size of the molecule is huge, the coalescence probability is small due to strict constraints on the relative momentum between $D^0$ and $bar D^{*0}$ in the molecular Wigner function, which significantly suppresses the molecular yield.
The observed strong suppression of heavy flavored hadrons produced with high $p_T$, is caused by final state interactions with the created dense medium. Vacuum radiation of high-pT heavy quarks ceases at a short time scale, as is confirmed by pQCD calculations and by LEP measurements of the fragmentation functions of heavy quarks. Production of a heavy flavored hadrons in a dense medium is considerably delayed due to prompt breakup of the hadrons by the medium. This causes a strong suppression of the heavy quark yield because of the specific shape of the fragmentation function. The parameter-free description is in a good accord with available data.