arXiv subjects

A. Francis

Publications and source records attributed to A. Francis.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

Heavy Quark diffusion from lattice QCD spectral functions

We analyze the low frequency part of charmonium spectral functions on large lattices close to the continuum limit in the temperature region $1.5\lesssim T/T_c\lesssim 3$ as well as for $T \simeq 0.75T_c$. We present evidence for the existence of a transport peak above $T_c$ and its absence below $T_c$. The heavy quark diffusion constant is then estimated using the Kubo formula. As part of the calculation we also determine the temperature dependence of the signature for the charmonium bound state in the spectral function and discuss the fate of charmonium states in the hot medium.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2011

Meson screening masses from lattice QCD with two light and the strange quark

We present results for screening masses of mesons built from light and strange quarks in the temperature range of approximately between 140 MeV to 800 MeV. The lattice computations were performed with 2+1 dynamical light and strange flavors of improved (p4) staggered fermions along a line of constant physics defined by a pion mass of about 220 MeV and a kaon mass of 500 MeV. The lattices had temporal extents Nt = 4, 6 and 8 and aspect ratios of Ns / Nt \geq 4. At least up to a temperature of 140 MeV the pseudo-scalar screening mass remains almost equal to the corresponding zero temperature pseudo-scalar (pole) mass. At temperatures around 3Tc (Tc being the transition temperature) the continuum extrapolated pseudo-scalar screening mass approaches very close to the free continuum result of 2 πT from below. On the other hand, at high temperatures the vector screening mass turns out to be larger than the free continuum value of 2 πT. The pseudo-scalar and the vector screening masses do not become degenerate even for a temperature as high as 4Tc. Using these mesonic spatial correlation functions we have also investigated the restoration of chiral symmetry and the effective restoration of the axial symmetry. We have found that the vector and the axial-vector screening correlators become degenerate, indicating chiral symmetry restoration, at a temperature which is consistent with the QCD transition temperature obtained in previous studies. On the other hand, the pseudo-scalar and the scalar screening correlators become degenerate only at temperatures larger than 1.3Tc, indicating that the effective restoration of the axial symmetry takes place at a temperature larger than the QCD transition temperature.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2011

Thermal dilepton rate and electrical conductivity: An analysis of vector current correlation functions in quenched lattice QCD

We calculate the vector current correlation function for light valence quarks in the deconfined phase of QCD. The calculations have been performed in quenched lattice QCD at T=1.45 Tc for four values of the lattice cut-off on lattices up to size 128^3x48. This allows to perform a continuum extrapolation of the correlation function in the Euclidean time interval tau*T -in [0.2, 0.5], which extends to the largest temporal separations possible at finite temperature, to better than 1% accuracy. In this interval, at the value of the temperature investigated, we find that the vector correlation function never deviates from the free correlator for massless quarks by more than 9%. We also determine the first two non-vanishing thermal moments of the vector meson spectral function. The second thermal moment deviates by less than 7% from the free value. With these constraints, we then proceed to extract information on the spectral representation of the vector correlator and discuss resulting consequences for the electrical conductivity and the thermal dilepton rate in the plasma phase.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2010

Charmonium correlation and spectral functions at finite temperature

We study the properties of charmonium states at finite temperature in quenched QCD on isotropic lattices. We measured charmonium correlators using non-perturbatively $\cO(a)$ improved clover fermions on fine ($a=0.01$ fm) lattices with a relatively large size of $128^{3}\times 96$, $128^3\times48$, $128^3\times32$ and $128^3\times24$ at $0.73~T_c$, $1.46~T_c$, $2.20~T_c$ and $2.93~T_c$, respectively. Our analysis suggests that $\Jpsi$ is melted already at $1.46~T_c$ and $η_c$ starts to dissolve at $1.46~T_c$ and does not exist at higher temperatures. We also identify the heavy quark transport contribution at the spectral function level for the first time.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2006

Evidence for Differential Rotation on a T Tauri Star

Five years of photometric monitoring of the T Tauri star HBC 338 in NGC 1333 has revealed that it is a periodic variable, but the period has changed significantly with time. From 2000-2003, a period near 5.6 days was observed, while in the last two seasons, the dominant period is near 4.6 days. No other T Tauri star has been seen to change its period by such a large percentage. We propose a model in which a differentially rotating star is seen nearly equator-on and a high latitude spot has gradually been replaced by a low latitude spot. We show that this model provides an excellent fit to the observed shapes of the light curves at each epoch. The amplitude and sense of the inferred differential rotation is similar to what is seen on the Sun. This may be surprising given the likely high degree of magnetic surface activity on the star relative to the Sun but we note that HBC 338 is clearly an exceptional T Tauri star.

astro-ph↗