We discuss the implications of the eikonal amplitude on the pair production probability in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion transits. In this context the Weizsacker-Williams method is shown to be exact in the ultrarelativistic limit, irrespective of the produced particles mass. A new equivalent single-photon distribution is derived which correctly accounts for the Coulomb distortions. As an immediate application, consequences for unitarity violation in photo-dissociation processes in peripheral heavy-ion encounters are discussed.
We show that the phenomenology of isospin effects on heavy ion reactions at intermediate energies (few AGeV range) is extremely rich and can allow a ``direct study of the covariant structure of the isovector interaction in a high density hadron medium. We work within a relativistic transport frame, beyond a cascade picture, consistently derived from effective Lagrangians, where isospin effects are accounted for in the mean field and collision terms. We show that rather sensitive observables are provided by the pion/kaon production (pi^-/pi^+, K^0/K^+ yields). Relevant non-equilibrium effects are stressed. The possibility of the transition to a mixed hadron-quark phase, at high baryon and isospin density, is finally suggested. Some signatures could come from an expected ``neutron trapping effect.
The correction to the Coulomb energy due to virtual production of $e^+e^-$ pairs, which is on the order of one percent of the Coulomb energy at nuclear scales is discussed. The effects of including a pair-production term in the semi-empirical mass formula and the correction to the Coulomb barrier for a handful of nuclear collisions using the Bass and Coulomb potentials are studied. With an eye toward future work using Constrained Molecular Dynamics (CoMD) model, we also calculate the correction to the Coulomb energy and force between protons after folding with a Gaussian spatial distribution.
Systematic investigations of dilepton production are performed at the SIS accelerator of GSI with the HADES spectrometer. The goal of this program is a detailed understanding of di-electron emission from hadronic systems at moderate temperatures and densities. New results obtained in HADES experiments focussing on electron pair production in elementary collisions are reported here. They pave the way to a better understanding of the origin of the so-called excess pairs earlier on observed in heavy-ion collisions by the DLS collaboration and lately confirmed in two measurements of the HADES collaboration using C+C and Ar+KCl collisions. Results of these studies are discussed.
Transport and Langevin equations are employed to study hadronic medium effects on charmonium elliptic flows in heavy-ion collisions. In Pb-Pb collisions, the anisotropic energy density of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in the transverse plane is transformed into hadron momentum anisotropy after the phase transition. Charmonia with high transverse momentum $p_T$ are produced via the primordial hard process and undergo different degrees of dissociation along different paths in the QGP. They then scatter with light hadrons in the hadron phase. Both contributions to the charmonium elliptic flows are studied at moderate and high transverse momenta. The elliptic flows of the prompt $J/psi$ are found to be considerably enhanced at high transverse momentum when the charmonium diffusion coefficients in the hadronic medium are parametrized through the geometry scale approximation. This hadronic medium effect is negligible for quarkonia with larger mass such as bottomonia.
A simple approach is proposed allowing actual calculations of the preequilibrium dynamics in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions to be performed for a far-from-equilibrium initial state. The method is based on the phenomenological macroscopic equations that describe the relaxation dynamics of the energy-momentum tensor and are motivated by Boltzmann kinetics in the relaxation-time approximation. It gives the possibility to match smoothly a nonthermal initial state to the hydrodynamics of the quark gluon plasma. The model contains two parameters, the duration of the prehydrodynamic stage and the initial value of the relaxation-time parameter, and allows one to assess the energy-momentum tensor at a supposed time of initialization of the hydrodynamics.