arXiv subjects

Aleksas Mazeliauskas

Publications and source records attributed to Aleksas Mazeliauskas.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Temperature and fluid velocity on the freeze-out surface from $π$, $K$, $p$ spectra in pp, p--Pb and Pb--Pb collisions

We present a new approach to take into account resonance decays in the blast-wave model fits of identified hadron spectra. Thanks to pre-calculated decayed particle spectra, we are able to extract, in a matter of seconds, the multiplicity dependence of the single freeze-out temperature $T_{\rm fo}$, average fluid velocity $\left<β_{\rm T}\right>$, velocity exponent $n$, and the volume $dV/dy$ of an expanding fireball. In contrast to blast-wave fits without resonance feed-down, our approach results in a freeze-out temperature of $T_{\rm fo}\approx 150\,\text{MeV}$, which has only weak dependence on multiplicity and collision system. Finally, we discuss separate chemical and kinetic freeze-outs separated by partial chemical equilibrium.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Entropy production in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

We use experimentally measured identified particle spectra and Hanbury Brown-Twiss radii to determine the entropy per unit rapidity $dS/dy$ produced in $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV pp and $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV Pb-Pb collisions. We find that $dS/dy = 11335 \pm 1188$ in 0-10% Pb-Pb, $dS/dy = 135.7 \pm 17.9$ in high-multiplicity pp, and $dS/dy = 37.8 \pm 3.7$ in minimum bias pp collisions and compare the corresponding entropy per charged particle $(dS/dy)/(dN_{\rm ch}/dy)$ to predictions of statistical models. Finally, we use the QCD kinetic theory pre-equilibrium and viscous hydrodynamics to model entropy production in the collision and reconstruct the average temperature profile at $τ_0 = 1$ fm/$c$ for high multiplicity pp and Pb-Pb collisions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Probing the evolution of heavy-ion collisions using direct photon interferometry

We investigate the measurement of Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) photon correlations as an experimental tool to discriminate different sources of photon enhancement, which are proposed to simultaneously reproduce the direct photon yield and the azimuthal anisotropy measured in nuclear collisions at RHIC and the LHC. To showcase this, we consider two different scenarios in which we enhance the yields from standard hydrodynamical simulations. In the first, additional photons are produced from the early pre-equilibrium stage computed from the \textit{bottom-up} thermalization scenario. In the second, the thermal rates are enhanced close to the pseudo-critical temperature $T_c\approx 155\,\text{MeV}$ using a phenomenological ansatz. We compute the correlators for relative momenta $q_o, \,q_s$ and $q_l$ for different transverse pair momenta, $K_\perp$, and find that the longitudinal correlation is the most sensitive to different photon sources. Our results also demonstrate that including anisotropic pre-equilibrium rates enhances non-Gaussianities in the correlators, which can be quantified using the kurtosis of the correlators. Finally, we study the feasibility of measuring a direct photon HBT signal in the upcoming high-luminosity LHC runs. Considering only statistical uncertainties, we find that with the projected $\sim 10^{10}$ heavy ion events a measurement of the HBT correlations for $K_\perp<1\, \text{GeV}$ is statistically significant.

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arXiv2019

Chemical equilibration of QGP in hadronic collisions

We performed state-of-the-art QCD effective kinetic theory simulations of chemically equilibrating QGP in longitudinally expanding systems. We find that chemical equilibration takes place after hydrodynamization, but well before local thermalization. By relating the transport properties of QGP and the system size we estimate that hadronic collisions with final state multiplicities $dN_\text{ch}/dη> 10^2$ live long enough to reach approximate chemical equilibrium for all collision systems. Therefore we expect the saturation of strangeness enhancement to occur at the same multiplicity in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Longitudinal spin polarization in a thermal model

We use a thermal model with single freeze-out to determine longitudinal polarization of $Λ$ hyperons emitted from a hot and rotating hadronic medium. We consider the top RHIC energies and use the model parameters determined in the previous analyses of particle spectra and elliptic flow. Using a direct connection between the spin polarization tensor and thermal vorticity, we reproduce earlier results which indicate a quadrupole structure of the longitudinal component of the polarization three-vector with an opposite sign compared to that found in the experiment. We further use only the spatial components of the thermal vorticity in the laboratory system to define polarization and show that this leads to the correct sign and magnitude of the quadrupole structure. This procedure resembles a non-relativistic connection between the polarization three-vector and vorticity employed in other works. In general, our results bring further evidence that the spin polarization dynamics in heavy-ion collisions may be not directly related to the thermal vorticity. The additional material explains the construction of the hydrodynamicaly consistent gradients of fluid velocity and temperature in thermal models with the help of the perfect-fluid equations of motion.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2019

Chemical Equilibration in Weakly Coupled QCD

We study thermalization, hydrodynamization, and chemical equilibration in out-of-equilibrium Quark-Gluon Plasma starting from various initial conditions using QCD effective kinetic theory, valid at weak coupling. In non-expanding systems gauge bosons rapidly lose information of the initial state and achieve kinetic equilibrium among themselves, while fermions approach the equilibrium distribution only at later time. In systems undergoing rapid longitudinal expansion, both gluons and quarks are kept away from equilibrium by the expansion, but the evolution is well described by fluid dynamics even before local thermal equilibrium is reached. For realistic couplings we determine the ordering between the separate hydrodynamization, chemical equilibration and thermalization time scales to be $τ_\text{hydro}<τ_\text{chem}<τ_\text{therm}$.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Prescaling and far-from-equilibrium hydrodynamics in the quark-gluon plasma

Prescaling is a far-from-equilibrium phenomenon which describes the rapid establishment of a universal scaling form of distributions much before the universal values of their scaling exponents are realized. We consider the example of the spatio-temporal evolution of the quark-gluon plasma explored in heavy-ion collisions at sufficiently high energies. Solving QCD kinetic theory with elastic and inelastic processes, we demonstrate that the gluon and quark distributions very quickly adapt a self-similar scaling form, which is independent of initial condition details and system parameters. The dynamics in the prescaling regime is then fully encoded in a few time-dependent scaling exponents, whose slow evolution gives rise to far-from-equilibrium hydrodynamic behavior.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Matching the Nonequilibrium Initial Stage of Heavy Ion Collisions to Hydrodynamics with QCD Kinetic Theory

High-energy nuclear collisions produce a nonequilibrium plasma of quarks and gluons which thermalizes and exhibits hydrodynamic flow. There are currently no practical frameworks to connect the early particle production in classical field simulations to the subsequent hydrodynamic evolution. We build such a framework using nonequilibrium Green's functions, calculated in QCD kinetic theory, to propagate the initial energy-momentum tensor to the hydrodynamic phase. We demonstrate that this approach can be easily incorporated into existing hydrodynamic simulations, leading to stronger constraints on the energy density at early times and the transport properties of the QCD medium. Based on (conformal) scaling properties of the Green's functions, we further obtain pragmatic bounds for the applicability of hydrodynamics in nuclear collisions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Chemical Equilibration in Hadronic Collisions

We study chemical equilibration in out-of-equilibrium Quark-Gluon Plasma using the first principles method of QCD effective kinetic theory, accurate at weak coupling. In longitudinally expanding systems--relevant for relativistic nuclear collisions--we find that for realistic couplings chemical equilibration takes place after hydrodynamization, but well before local thermalization. We estimate that hadronic collisions with final state multiplicities ${dN_\text{ch}}/{dη}\gtrsim 10^2$ live long enough to reach approximate chemical equilibrium, which is consistent with the saturation of strangeness enhancement observed in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Fast resonance decays in nuclear collisions

In the context of ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions, we present a fast method for calculating the final particle spectra after the direct decay of resonances from a Cooper-Frye integral over the freeze-out surface. The method is based on identifying components of the final particle spectrum that transform in an irreducible way under rotations in the fluid-restframe. Corresponding distribution functions can be pre-computed including all resonance decays. Just a few of easily tabulated scalar functions then determine the Lorentz invariant decay spectrum from each space-time point, and simple integrals of these scalar functions over the freeze-out surface determine the final decay products. This by-passes numerically costly event-by-event calculations of the intermediate resonances. The method is of considerable practical use for making realistic data to model comparisons of the identified particle yields and flow harmonics, and for studying the viscous corrections to the freeze-out distribution function.

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arXiv2018

Bulk viscosity from hydrodynamic fluctuations with relativistic hydro-kinetic theory

Hydro-kinetic theory of thermal fluctuations is applied to a non-conformal relativistic fluid. Solving the hydro-kinetic equations for an isotropically expanding background we find that hydrodynamic fluctuations give ultraviolet divergent contributions to the energy-momentum tensor. After shifting the temperature to account for the energy of non-equilibrium modes, the remaining divergences are renormalized into local parameters, e.g. pressure and bulk viscosity. We also confirm that the renormalization of the pressure and bulk viscosity is universal by computing them for a Bjorken expansion. The fluctuation-induced bulk viscosity reflects the non-conformal nature of the equation of state and is modestly enhanced near the QCD deconfinement temperature.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2018

Initial conditions for nuclear collisions: theory overview

We overview the current status and recent developments on initial conditions in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions. Specifically, we look at the progress in understanding the role of sub-nucleonic fluctuations in large and small collision systems. Next, we review the current ideas of going beyond boost invariant initial conditions and introducing physically motivated rapidity fluctuations at RHIC and LHC energies. Finally, we discuss the time evolution of initial stages and the matching between different descriptions of the QGP.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2018

Effective kinetic description of event-by-event pre-equilibrium dynamics in high-energy heavy-ion collisions

We develop a macroscopic description of the space-time evolution of the energy-momentum tensor during the pre-equilibrium stage of a high-energy heavy-ion collision. Based on a weak coupling effective kinetic description of the microscopic equilibration process (à la "bottom-up"), we calculate the non-equilibrium evolution of the local background energy-momentum tensor as well as the non-equilibrium linear response to transverse energy and momentum perturbations for realistic boost-invariant initial conditions for heavy ion collisions. We demonstrate how this framework can be used on an event-by-event basis to propagate the energy momentum tensor from far-from-equilibrium initial state models, e.g. IP-Glasma, to the time $τ_\text{hydro}$ when the system is well described by relativistic viscous hydrodynamics. The subsequent hydrodynamic evolution becomes essentially independent of the hydrodynamic initialization time $τ_\text{hydro}$ as long as $τ_\text{hydro}$ is chosen in an appropriate range where both kinetic and hydrodynamic descriptions overlap. We find that for $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76\,\text{TeV}$ central Pb-Pb collisions, the typical time scale when viscous hydrodynamics with shear viscosity over entropy ratio $η/s=0.16$ becomes applicable is $τ_\text{hydro}\sim 1\,\text{fm/c}$ after the collision.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

A kinetic regime of hydrodynamic fluctuations and long time tails for a Bjorken expansion

We develop a set of kinetic equations for hydrodynamic fluctuations which are equivalent to nonlinear hydrodynamics with noise. The hydro-kinetic equations can be coupled to existing second order hydrodynamic codes to incorporate the physics of these fluctuations, which become dominant near the critical point. We use the hydro-kinetic equations to calculate the modifications of energy momentum tensor by thermal fluctuations from the earliest moments and at late times in Bjorken expansion. The solution to the kinetic equations precisely determines the coefficient of the first fractional power ($\propto τ^{-3/2}$) in the energy momentum tensor gradient expansion. Numerically, we find that the contribution to the longitudinal pressure from hydrodynamic fluctuations is comparable to the second order hydrodynamic terms for typical medium parameters used to simulate heavy ion collisions.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2017

Initial conditions for hydrodynamics from kinetic theory equilibration

We use effective kinetic theory to study the pre-equilibrium dynamics in heavy-ion collisions. We describe the evolution of linearized energy perturbations on top of out-of-equilibrium background to the energy-momentum tensor at a time when hydrodynamics becomes applicable. We apply this description to IP-Glasma initial conditions and find an overall smooth transition to hydrodynamics. In a phenomenologically favorable range of $η/s$ values, early time dynamics can be accurately described in terms of a few functions of a scaled time variable $τT/(η/s)$. Our framework can be readily applied to other initial state models to provide the pre-equilibrium dynamics of the energy momentum tensor.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2017

Fluctuations in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions

Fluctuations are one of the main probes of the physics of the new state of hot and dense nuclear matter called the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) which is created in the ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. In this dissertation we extend and improve upon the existing descriptions of heavy ion collisions in three different directions: we study the new signatures of initial state fluctuations, the propagation of perturbations in the early stages of the collision, and the effect of thermal fluctuations on the hydrodynamic expansion of the QGP. First, we use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to study event-by-event fluctuations in the spectrum of harmonic flow, $v_n(p_T)$ for $n=0\text{--}5$, in hydrodynamic simulations of Pb+Pb collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider ($\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76\,{\rm TeV}$). The PCA procedure finds two dominant contributions to the two-particle correlation function: the leading component is identified with the standard event plane $v_n(p_T)$ and the subleading component is responsible for factorization breaking and reflects the radial excitation in the initial state. Second, we use leading order effective kinetic theory (accurate at weak coupling) to simulate the pre-equilibrium evolution of transverse energy and flow perturbations. We construct the linear response Green functions, which map initial perturbations to the energy momentum tensor at a time when hydrodynamics becomes applicable. Finally, we develop a set of kinetic equations for thermal noise correlators which are equivalent to nonlinear hydrodynamics with noise. We use the hydro-kinetic equations to analyze thermal fluctuations for a Bjorken expansion and determine the coefficient of the first fractional power ($\propto 1/(τT)^{3/2}$) of the nonlinear noise corrections to energy momentum tensor.

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arXiv2016

Initial conditions for hydrodynamics from weakly coupled pre-equilibrium evolution

We use leading order effective kinetic theory to simulate the pre\nobreakdash-equilibrium evolution of transverse energy and flow perturbations in heavy-ion collisions. We provide a Green function which propagates the initial perturbations of the energy-momentum tensor to a time when hydrodynamics becomes applicable. With this map, the pre-thermal evolution from saturated nuclei to hydrodynamics can be modeled in the framework of weakly coupled QCD.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2016

Initial conditions for hydrodynamics from weakly coupled pre-equilibrium evolution

We use effective kinetic theory, accurate at weak coupling, to simulate the pre-equilibrium evolution of transverse energy and flow perturbations in heavy-ion collisions. We provide a Green function which propagates the initial perturbations to the energy-momentum tensor at a time when hydrodynamics becomes applicable. With this map, the complete pre-thermal evolution from saturated nuclei to hydrodynamics can be modelled in a perturbatively controlled way.

hep-ph↗