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Ana Julia Mizher

Publications and source records attributed to Ana Julia Mizher.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Photon production from gluon splitting and fusion induced by a magnetic field of arbitrary strength in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We compute the yield and elliptic flow coefficient for photons produced during the pre-equilibrium stage of semi-central relativistic heavy-ion collisions from the gluon fusion and splitting processes induced by the presence of a magnetic field. The calculation is performed for arbitrary values of the field strength. The pre-equilibrium gluon distribution is modeled with a glasma-inspired Bose-Einstein occupation factor, as well as with an anisotropic distribution that accounts for the rapid initial expansion along the beam axis. In both cases, we find a very good agreement between the calculation and the experimental data from PHENIX. Most notably, the shape and strength of the elliptic flow coefficient are described quite well, representing a step towards solving the outstanding photon puzzle.

hep-ph↗

Leading order quark-antiquark-W-boson vertex in the presence of a magnetic field

We compute the leading order modification to the quark-antiquark-$W$-boson vertex in the presence of a constant and uniform magnetic field, specifically for the case where the quark and antiquark are the $u$ and $\bar{d}$, respectively. We find the selection rules for transitions where the $u$, $\bar{d}$, and $W$-boson occupy arbitrary Landau levels. We show that, for the particular case where the initial particles each occupy the lowest Landau level, the $W^+$ is also produced in the lowest Landau level with a single polarization aligned with the magnetic field. We also illustrate the general findings by computing the case of transitions between low lying Landau levels and show the correspondence between the polarization vectors for the $W$-boson and the polarization states for the quark and the antiquark.

hep-ph↗

Photon production from gluon splitting and fusion induced by a magnetic field in heavy-ion collisions

In heavy-ion collisions, an excess in photon production, together with a larger than expected positive elliptic flow, has been observed, a phenomenon commonly referred to as the direct photon puzzle. In this work we study the mechanism of photon production arising from gluon splitting and fusion during the pre-equilibrium stage in the presence of magnetic fields in peripheral heavy-ion collisions. We begin by analyzing the general tensor structure of the two-gluon one-photon vertex, computing it at the one-loop level for magnetic fields of arbitrary strength without resorting to additional approximations. Using these expressions, we calculate the contribution of gluon fusion and splitting to the photon yield, revealing that splitting dominates over fusion at low photon energies. Our results are compared with experimental data from the PHENIX collaboration. Finally, we incorporate a longitudinal anisotropy into the initial gluon distribution and find that it does not significantly alter the photon yield compared to an isotropic distribution.

hep-ph↗

Asymmetric muon-antimuon emission from $Z^0$ decays: a clear magnetometer in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We show that a very clear signal of the presence of a strong magnetic field during the early stage of a high-energy heavy-ion collision is provided by the decay of the $Z^0$ into dimuon pairs. We find that the process is highly anisotropic, producing pairs mainly out of plane, as signaled by a negative value of $v_2$, and leads to an antimuon transverse momentum distribution which peaks at a higher value of the transverse momentum compared to the peak of the muon transverse momentum distribution. We also show that the process does not produce a significant distortion of the $Z^0$ spectral function. The signal can be identified by comparing the dimuon-invariant mass and the individual muon and antimuon spectra produced in semicentral heavy-ion collisions with the corresponding scaled spectra produced in p+p collisions at the $Z^0$ peak.

hep-ph↗

Magnetic field dependence of the neutral pion longitudinal screening mass in the linear sigma model with quarks

We use the linear sigma model with quarks to study the magnetic-field-induced modifications on the longitudinal screening mass for the neutral pion at one-loop level. The effects of the magnetic field are introduced into the self-energy, which contains the contributions from all the model particles. We find that, to obtain a reasonable description for the behavior with the field strength, we need to account for the magnetic field dependence of the particle masses. We also find that the couplings need to decrease fast enough with the field strength to then reach constant and smaller values as compared to their vacuum ones. The results illustrate the need to treat the magnetic corrections to the particle masses and couplings in a self-consistent manner, accounting for the backreaction of the field effects for the magnetic field dependence of the rest of the particle species and couplings in the model.

hep-ph↗

Anisotropic photon emission from gluon fusion and splitting in a strong magnetic background I: The two-gluon one-photon vertex

Having in mind the pre-equilibrium stage in peripheral heavy-ion collisions as a possible scenario for the production of electromagnetic radiation, we compute the two-gluon one-photon vertex in the presence of an intense magnetic field at one-loop order. The quarks in the loop are taken such that two of them occupy the lowest Landau level, with the third one occupying the first exited Landau level. When the field strength is the largest of the energy (squared) scales, the tensor basis describing this vertex corresponds to two of the three vector particles polarized in the longitudinal direction whereas the third one is polarized in the transverse direction. However, when the photon energy is of order or larger than the field strength, the explicit one-loop computation contains extra tensor structures that spoil the properties of the basis, compared to the case when the field strength is the largest of the energy scales, which signals that the calculation is incomplete. Nevertheless, by projecting the result onto the would-be basis, we show that the squared amplitude for processes involving two gluons and one photon exhibits the expected properties such as a preferred in-plane photon emission and a slightly decreasing strength for an increasing magnetic field strength. We comment on possible venues to improve the one-loop calculation that include accounting for progressive occupation of the three quarks of the lowest and first excited Landau levels such that, still working in the large field limit, a more complete description can be achieved when the photon energy increases.

hep-ph↗

Non-perturbative field theoretical aspects of graphene and related systems

In this article, we review the dynamics of charge carriers in graphene and related 2D systems from a quantum field theoretical point of view. By allowing the electromagnetic fields to propagate throughout space and constraining fermions to move on a 2D manifold, the effective theory of such systems becomes a non-local version of quantum electrodynamics (QED) dubbed in literature pseudo or reduced QED. We review some aspects of the theory assuming the coupling arbitrary in strength. In particular, we focus on the chiral symmetry breaking scenarios and the analytical structure of the fermion propagator in vacuum and under the influence of external agents like a heat bath, in the presence of a Chern-Simons term, anisotropy and in curved space. We briefly discuss the major advances and some new results on this field.

hep-th↗

On the influence of a Chern-Simons term in the dynamical fermion masses in Reduced or Pseudo QED

Mixed dimensional theories have been used to describe condensed matter systems where fermions are constrained to a plane while the gauge fields they interact with remain four-dimensional. Here we investigate dynamical breaking of chiral symmetry in the framework of a mixed-dimensional theory that has been successful in describing graphene and other planar Dirac materials and has been dubbed as Pseudo or Reduced Quantum Electrodynamics. We explore the interplay between the gauge and fermion sector when a Chern-Simons term is considered and, by exploring the tensor structure of the fermion self energy, we show that the radiative corrections may induce both, a Dirac and a Haldane mass term. Furthermore, by solving the corresponding Schwinger-Dyson equation in a suitable truncation, we explore non-perturbatively the dynamical generation of fermion masses for different values of the electromagnetic coupling and the Chern-Simons coefficient. We also show that for definite parameter values, the contributions from each chirality cancel out and the chiral symmetry may be restored. Possible implications of this result for physical systems, in particular on what concerns the chiral magnetic effect, are discussed.

hep-ph↗

Aspects of the pseudo Chiral Magnetic Effect in 2D Weyl-Dirac Matter

A connection is established between the continuum limit of the low-energy tight-binding description of graphene immersed in an in-plane magnetic field and the Chiral Magnetic Effect in Quantum Chromodynamics. A combination of mass gaps that explicitly breaks the equivalence of the Dirac cones, favoring an imbalance of pseudo-chiralities, is the essential ingredient to generate a non-dissipative electric current along the external field. Currents, number densities and condensates generated from this setup are investigated for different hierarchies of the energy scales involved.

hep-ph↗

Chiral Symmetry transition in the Linear Sigma Model with quarks: Counting effective QCD degrees of freedom from low to high temperature

We use the linear sigma model coupled to quarks, together with a plausible location of the critical end point (CEP), to study the chiral symmetry transition in the QCD phase diagram. We compute the effective potential at finite temperature and density up to the contribution of the ring diagrams, both in the low and high temperature limits, and use it to compute the pressure and the position of the CEP. In the high temperature regime, by comparing to results from extrapolated lattice data, we determine the model coupling constants. Demanding that the CEP remains in the same location when described in the high temperature limit, we determine again the couplings and the pressure for the low temperature regime. We show that this procedure gives an average description of the lattice QCD results for the pressure and that the change from the low to the high temperature domains in this quantity can be attributed to the change in the coupling constants which in turn we link to the change in the effective degrees of freedom.

hep-ph↗

Electric current generation in distorted graphene

Graphene-like materials can be effectively described by Quantum Electrodynamics in (2+1)-dimensions. In a pristine state, these systems exhibit a symmetry between the nonequivalent Dirac points in the honeycomb lattice. Realistic samples which include distortions and crystalline anisotropies are considered through mass gaps of topological and dynamical nature. In this work we show that the incorporation of an in-plane uniform external magnetic field on this pseudochiral asymmetric configuration generates a non-dissipative electric current aligned with the magnetic field: The pseudo chiral magnetic effect. This scenario resembles the chiral magnetic effect in Quantum Chromodynamics.

hep-ph↗

Warm inflation in the presence of magnetic fields

We study the effects of primordial magnetic fields on the inflationary potential in the context of a warm inflation scenario. The model, based on global supersymmetry with a new-inflation-type potential and a coupling between the inflaton and a heavy intermediate superfield, is already known to preserve the flatness required for slow-roll conditions even after including thermal contributions. Here we show that the magnetic field makes the potential even flatter, retarding the transition and rendering it smoother.

hep-ph↗

Inverse magnetic catalysis for the chiral transition induced by thermo-magnetic effects on the coupling constant

We compute the one-loop thermo-magnetic corrections to the self-coupling in a model where charged scalars interact also with a constant magnetic field. The calculation is motivated by the possibility that the critical temperature for the chiral phase transition in a magnetic background can be influenced by the dependence of the coupling constant on the magnetic field. We show that the coupling decreases as a function of the field strength. This functional dependence introduces in turn a correction to the boson masses which causes the critical temperature to decrease as a function of the field strength.

hep-ph↗

Chiral transition with magnetic fields

We study the nature of the chiral transition for an effective theory with spontaneous breaking of symmetry, where charged bosons and fermions are subject to the effects of a constant external magnetic field. The problem is studied in terms of the relative intensity of the magnetic field with respect to the mass and the temperature. When the former is the smallest of the scales, we present a suitable method to obtain magnetic and thermal corrections up to ring order at high temperature. By these means, we solve the problem of the instability in the boson sector for these theories, where the squared masses, taken as functions of the order parameter, can vanish and even become negative. The solution is found by considering the screening properties of the plasma, encoded in the resummation of the ring diagrams at high temperature. We also study the case where the magnetic field is the intermediate of the three scales and explore the nature of the chiral transition as we vary the field strength, the coupling constants and the number of fermions. We show that the critical temperature for the restoration of chiral symmetry monotonically increases from small to intermediate values of the magnetic fields and that this temperature is always above the critical temperature for the case when the magnetic field is absent.

hep-ph↗

Warm inflation in presence of magnetic fields

We present preliminary results on the possible effects that primordial magnetic fields can have for a warm inflation scenario, based on global supersymmetry, with a new-inflation-type potential. This work is motivated by two considerations: first, magnetic fields seem to be present in the universe on all scales, which rises the possibility that they could also permeate the early universe; second, the recent emergence of inflationary models where the inflaton is not assumed to be isolated but instead it is taken as an interacting field, even during the inflationary expansion. The effects of magnetic fields are included resorting to Schwinger proper time method.

astro-ph.CO↗

Dimuon production from in-medium rho decays from QCD sum rules

We compute the dimuon-excess invariant mass distribution at the rho-meson peak in the context of relativistic heavy-ion collisions at SPS energies. The temperature, T, and chemical potential, mu, dependent parameters describing the rho-meson --its width, mass and leptonic decay constant-- are determined from finite energy QCD sum rules. Results show that the rho-meson width increases whereas its mass and leptonic decay constant decrease near the (chemical potential-dependent) critical temperature T_c(mu) for chiral symmetry restoration/quark-gluon deconfinement. As a consequence, starting from T_c(mu), for a short lived cooling the main effect is a broadening of the dimuon distribution. However, when the evolution brings the system to a lower freeze-out temperature, with the rho-meson parameters approaching their vacuum values, the dimuon distribution shows a broad peak centered at the vacuum rho-meson mass. For even lower freeze-out temperatures the peak becomes less prominent since the thermal phase space factor suppresses the distribution for larger values of the invariant dimuon mass, given that the average temperature is smaller. The dimuon distribution exhibits a non-trivial behavior with mu. For small mu values the distribution broadens with increasing mu becoming a bit steeper at low invariant masses for larger values of mu. Our results are in very good agreement with data from the NA60 Collaboration.

hep-ph↗

Phase diagram for charged scalars in a magnetic field at finite temperature

We investigate the nature of the phase transition for charged scalars in the presence of a magnetic background for a theory with spontaneous symmetry breaking. We perform a careful treatment of the negative mass squared as a function of the order parameter and present a suitable method to obtain magnetic and thermal corrections up to ring order for the high temperature limit and the case where the magnetic field strength is larger than the absolute value of the square of the mass parameter. We show that for a given value of the self-coupling, the phase transition is first order for a small magnetic field strength and becomes second order as this last grows. We also show that the critical temperature in the presence of the magnetic field is always below the critical temperature for the case where the field is absent.

hep-ph↗

Influence of quark masses on the QCD phase diagram in the presence of a magnetic field

The most recent lattice results on the QCD phase diagram in the presence of a strong magnetic field strongly disagree with results from previous lattice simulations and several model calculations. The most remarkable difference is the qualitative behavior of the critical temperature as a function of the magnetic field intensity, which in later results are shown to decrease in opposition to what was found previously. According to the authors, such a discrepancy in lattice simulations could be due to different lattice spacing, or different number of flavors and quark masses. We investigate the influence of quark masses on the Polyakov- Quark-Meson model and show that, although quantitatively the results are sensitive to those parameters, the qualitative behavior remains the same.

hep-ph↗