No Arabic abstract
We present a subset of experimental results on charge fluctuation from the heavy-ion collisions to search for phase transition and location of critical point in the QCD phase diagram. Measurements from the heavy-ion experiments at the SPS and RHIC energies observe that total charge fluctuations increase from central to peripheral collisions. The net-charge fluctuations in terms of dynamical fluctuation measure $ u_{(+-,dyn)}$ are studied as a function of collision energy (sqsn) and centrality of the collisions. The product of $ u_{(+-,dyn)}$ and $langle N_{ch} rangle$ shows a monotonic decrease with collision energies, which indicates that at LHC energy the fluctuations have their origin in the QGP phase. The fluctuations in terms of higher moments of net-proton, net-electric charge and net-kaon have been measured for various sqsn. Deviations are observed in both $Ssigma$ and $kappasigma^2$ for net-proton multiplicity distributions from the Skellam and hadron resonance gas model for sqsn $<$ 39 GeV. Higher moment results of the net-electric charge and net-kaon do not observe any significant non-monotonic behavior as a function of collision energy. We also discuss the extraction of the freeze-out parameters using particle ratios and experimentally measured higher moments of net-charge fluctuations. The extracted freeze-out parameters from experimentally measured moments and lattice calculations, are found to be in agreement with the results obtained from the fit of particle ratios to the thermal model calculations.
We review progress in the study of antinuclei, starting from Diracs equation and the discovery of the positron in cosmic-ray events. The development of proton accelerators led to the discovery of antiprotons, followed by the first antideuterons, demonstrating that antinucleons bind into antinuclei. With the development of heavy-ion programs at the Brookhaven AGS and CERN SPS, it was demonstrated that central collisions of heavy nuclei offer a fertile ground for research and discoveries in the area of antinuclei. In this review, we emphasize recent observations at Brookhavens Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and at CERNs Large Hadron Collider, namely, the antihypertriton and the antihelium-4, as well as measurements of the mass difference between light nuclei and antinuclei, and the interaction between antiprotons. Physics implications of the new observations and different production mechanisms are discussed. We also consider implications for related fields, such as hypernuclear physics and space-based cosmic-ray experiments.
We present a simple description of the energy density profile created in a nucleus-nucleus collision, motivated by high-energy QCD. The energy density is modeled as the sum of contributions coming from elementary collisions between localized charges and a smooth nucleus. Each of these interactions creates a sharply-peaked source of energy density falling off at large distances like $1/r^2$, corresponding to the two-dimensional Coulomb field of a point charge. Our model reproduces the one-point and two-point functions of the energy density field calculated in the framework of the color glass condensate effective theory, to leading logarithmic accuracy. We apply it to the description of eccentricity fluctuations. Unlike other existing models of initial conditions for heavy-ion collisions, it allows us to reproduce simultaneously the centrality dependence of elliptic and triangular flow.
The ultra-relativistic heavy-ion programs at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider have evolved into a phase of quantitative studies of Quantum Chromodynamics at very high temperatures. The charm and bottom hadron production offer unique insights into the remarkable transport properties and the microscopic structure of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in these collisions. Heavy quarks, due to their large masses, undergo Brownian motion at low momentum, provide a window on hadronization mechanisms at intermediate momenta, and are expected to merge into a radiative-energy loss regime at high momentum. We review recent experimental and theoretical achievements on measuring a variety of heavy-flavor observables, characterizing the different regimes in momentum, extracting pertinent transport coefficients and deducing implications for the inner workings of the QGP medium.
Taking doubly charged particles, positive-negative charge pair production and the effects of volume fluctuations into account, the Poisson baseline of the fluctuations of net-charge is studied. Within the Poisson baseline, the cumulants of net-charge are derived. Comparing to the Skellam baseline of net-charge, we infer that doubly charged particles broaden the distributions of net-charge, while positive-negative charge pairs narrow the distributions. Using the ratios of doubly charged particles and positive-negative charge pairs from neutral resonance decays to the total positive charges from THERMINATOR 2, the first four orders of moments and the corresponding moment products are calculated in the Poisson baseline for Au + Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV at RHIC/STAR. We find that the standard deviation is mainly influenced by the resonance decay, while the third and fourth order moments and corresponding moment products are mainly modified and fit the data of RHIC/STAR much better after including the effects of volume fluctuations.
The first experimental results of a new quantum method for calculating nuclear temperature and density of fragmenting heavy ions is presented. This method is based on fluctuations in the event quadrupole momentum and fragment multiplicity distributions of light Fermions. The cal- culated temperatures are lower than those obtained with a similar classical method. Quenching of the normalized multiplicity distributions of light fermions due to Pauli blocking is also observed. These results indicate a need for a quantum treatment when dealing with statistical properties of fragmenting heavy-ions.