We study the formation of the directed flow of hadrons in nuclear collisions at energies between AGS and SPS in Monte Carlo cascade model. The slope of the proton flow at midrapidity tends to zero (softening) with increasing impact parameter of the collision. For very peripheral topologies this slope becomes negative (antiflow). The effect is caused by rescattering of hadrons in remnants of the colliding nuclei. Since the softening of the proton flow can be misinterpreted as indication of the presence of quark-gluon plasma, we propose several measurements at NICA facility which can help one to distinguish between the cases with and without the plasma formation.
Various pion and photon production mechanisms in high-energy nuclear collisions at RHIC and LHC are discussed. Comparison with RHIC data is done whenever possible. The prospect of using electromagnetic probes to characterize quark-gluon plasma formation is assessed.
Recently the splitting of elliptic flow $v_2$ at finite rapidities has been proposed as a result of the global vorticity in non-central relativistic heavy ion collisions. Using a multi-phase transport model that automatically includes the vorticity field and flow fluctuations, we confirm the left-right (i.e., on opposite sides of the impact parameter axis) splitting of the elliptic flow at finite rapidities. However, we find that this $v_2$ splitting is a result of the non-zero directed flow $v_1$ at finite rapidities, with the splitting magnitude $approx 8v_1/3pi$. As a result, the $v_2$ splitting vanishes at zero transverse momentum ($p_{rm T}$), and its magnitude and sign may have non-trivial dependences on $p_{rm T}$, centrality, collision energy, and hadron species. Since the left-right $v_2$ splitting is a combined effect of $v_1$ and $v_2$, it will benefit studies of the three-dimensional structure and dynamics of the dense matter.
The three-dimensional pion and kaon emission source functions are extracted from the HKM model simulations of the central Au+Au collisions at the top RHIC energy $sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV. The model describes well the experimental data, previously obtained by the PHENIX and STAR collaborations using the imaging technique. In particular, the HKM reproduces the non-Gaussian heavy tails of the source function in the pair transverse momentum (out) and beam (long) directions, observed in the pion case and practically absent for kaons. The role of the rescatterings and long-lived resonances decays in forming of the mentioned long range tails is investigated. The particle rescatterings contribution to the out tail seems to be dominating. The model calculations also show the substantial relative emission times between pions (with mean value 14.5 fm/c in LCMS), including those coming from resonance decays and rescatterings. The prediction is made for the source functions in the LHC Pb+Pb collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV, which are still not extracted from the measured correlation functions.
The production of light (anti-)(hyper-)nuclei in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC is considered in the framework of the Saha equation, making use of the analogy between the evolution of the early universe after the Big Bang and that of Little Bangs created in the lab. Assuming that disintegration and regeneration reactions involving light nuclei proceed in relative chemical equilibrium after the chemical freeze-out of hadrons, their abundances are determined through the famous cosmological Saha equation of primordial nucleosynthesis and show no exponential dependence on the temperature typical for the thermal model. A quantitative analysis, performed using the hadron resonance gas model in partial chemical equilibrium, shows agreement with experimental data of the ALICE collaboration on d, $^3$He, $^3_Lambda$H, and $^4$He yields for a very broad range of temperatures at $T lesssim 155$ MeV. The presented picture is supported by the observed suppression of resonance yields in central Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC.
I give a brief overview of the science cases of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) with a particular emphasis on the connections to the physics of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions.