Based on the result in our previous work, we calculate the polarization of quarks from parton scatterings in high energy heavy ion collisions. The result is compared with the STAR data at $sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV.
Identifying hadronic molecular states and/or hadrons with multi-quark components either with or without exotic quantum numbers is a long standing challenge in hadronic physics. We suggest that studying the production of these hadrons in relativistic heavy ion collisions offer a promising resolution to this problem as yields of exotic hadrons are expected to be strongly affected by their structures. Using the coalescence model for hadron production, we find that compared to the case of a non-exotic hadron with normal quark numbers, the yield of an exotic hadron is typically an order of magnitude smaller when it is a compact multi-quark state and a factor of two or more larger when it is a loosely bound hadronic molecule. We further find that due to the appreciable numbers of charm and bottom quarks produced in heavy ion collisions at RHIC and even larger numbers expected at LHC, some of the newly proposed heavy exotic states could be produced and realistically measured in these experiments.
The dynamics of partons and hadrons in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions is analyzed within the novel Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach, which is based on a dynamical quasiparticle model for the partonic phase (DQPM) including a dynamical hadronization scheme. The PHSD approach is applied to nucleus-nucleus collisions from low SPS to LHC energies. The traces of partonic interactions are found in particular in the elliptic flow of hadrons and in their transverse mass spectra. We investigate also the equilibrium properties of strongly-interacting infinite parton-hadron matter characterized by transport coefficients such as shear and bulk viscosities and the electric conductivity in comparison to lattice QCD results.
The in-medium color potential is a fundamental quantity for understanding the properties of the strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma (sQGP). Open and hidden heavy-flavor (HF) production in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions (URHICs) has been found to be a sensitive probe of this potential. Here we utilize a previously developed quarkonium transport approach in combination with insights from open HF diffusion to extract the color-singlet potential from experimental results on $Upsilon$ production in URHICs. Starting from a parameterized trial potential, we evaluate the $Upsilon$ transport parameters and conduct systematic fits to available data for the centrality dependence of ground and excited states at RHIC and the LHC. The best fits and their statistical significance are converted into a temperature-dependent potential. Including nonperturbative effects in the dissociation rate guided from open HF phenomenology, we extract a rather strongly coupled potential with substantial remnants of the long-range confining force in the QGP.
We review studies of vortical motion and the resulting global polarization of $Lambda$ and $bar{Lambda}$ hyperons in heavy-ion collisions, in particular, within 3FD model. 3FD predictions for the global midrapidity polarization in the FAIR-NICA energy range are presented. The 3FD simulations indicate that energy dependence of the observed global polarization of hyperons in the midrapidity region is a consequence of the decrease of the vorticity in the central region with the collision energy rise because of pushing out the vorticity field into the fragmentation regions. At high collision energies this pushing-out results in a peculiar vortical structure consisting of two vortex rings: one ring in the target fragmentation region and another one in the projectile fragmentation region with matter rotation being opposite in these two rings.
The hot and dense matter generated in heavy-ion collisions contains intricate vortical structure in which the local fluid vorticity can be very large. Such vorticity can polarize the spin of the produced particles. We study the event-by-event generation of the so-called thermal vorticity in Au + Au collisions at energy region $sqrt{s}=7.7-200$ GeV and calculate its time evolution, spatial distribution, etc., in a multiphase transport (AMPT) model. We then compute the spin polarization of the $Lambda$ and $bar{Lambda}$ hyperons as a function of $sqrt{s}$, transverse momentum $p_T$, rapidity, and azimuthal angle. Furthermore, we study the harmonic flow of the spin, in a manner analogous to the harmonic flow of the particle number. The measurement of the spin harmonic flow may provide a way to probe the vortical structure in heavy-ion collisions. We also discuss the spin polarization of $Xi^0$ and $Omega^-$ hyperons which may provide further information about the spin polarization mechanism of hadrons.