arXiv subjects

B. Muller

Publications and source records attributed to B. Muller.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2015

Exploring the properties of the phases of QCD matter - research opportunities and priorities for the next decade

This document provides a summary of the discussions during the recent joint QCD Town Meeting at Temple University of the status of and future plans for the research program of the relativistic heavy-ion community. A list of compelling questions is formulated, and a number of recommendations outlining the greatest research opportunities and detailing the research priorities of the heavy-ion community, voted on and unanimously approved at the Town Meeting, are presented. They are supported by a broad discussion of the underlying physics and its relation to other subfields. Areas of overlapping interests with the "QCD and Hadron Structure" ("cold QCD") subcommunity, in particular the recommendation for the future construction of an Electron-Ion Collider, are emphasized. The agenda of activities of the "hot QCD" subcommunity at the Town Meeting is attached.

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arXiv2013

A "Helium Atom" of Space: Dynamical Instability of the Isochoric Pentahedron

We present an analysis of the dynamics of the equifacial pentahedron on the Kapovich-Millson phase space under a volume preserving Hamiltonian. The classical dynamics of polyhedra under such a Hamiltonian may arise from the classical limit of the node volume operators in loop quantum gravity. The pentahedron is the simplest nontrivial polyhedron for which the dynamics may be chaotic. We consider the distribution of polyhedral configurations throughout the space and find indications that the borders between certain configurations act as separatrices. We examine the local stability of trajectories within this phase space and find that locally unstable regions dominate although extended stable regions are present. Canonical and microcanonical estimates of the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy suggest that the pentahedron is a strongly chaotic system. The presence of chaos is further suggested by calculations of intermediate time Lyapunov exponents which saturate to non zero values.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2012

What can we learn from dijets? A systematic study with VNI/BMS

We present a systematic study of dijet suppression at RHIC using the VNI/BMS parton cascade code. We examine the medium modification of the dijet asymmetry $A_j$ and the energy distribution within the dijets. Understanding the sensitivity of these observables to properties of the deconfined medium and to experimental factors is vital if dijets are to be useful for QCD tomography. VNI/BMS provides a controllable test-bed with sufficient complexity to model jet modification without confounding results with fluctuations from hydrodynamics and hadronization. Dijets are examined under the modification of: the jet transport coefficient $\hat{q}$; the path length of leading and sub-leading jets; jet cone angle and the jet-medium interaction mechanism. We find that $A_j$ is very sensitive to the distance traveled by the secondary jet, the jet shape is dominated by $\hat{q}$ and the nature of the interaction mechanism.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Constituent mass dependence of transport coefficients in a quark-gluon plasma

The transverse and longitudinal transport coefficients for jets in a quark-gluon plasma, $\hat{q}$ and $\hat{e}$, are extracted from simulations of the VNI/BMS parton cascade model. We study their variation under the strong coupling and the parton mass in the medium. We show that their ratio is sensitive to the mass of the plasma constituents. Experimental measurements of both quantities could provide new insights into the nature of the quark-gluon plasma as seen by hard probes.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Jet Modification in a Brick of QGP Matter

We have implemented the LPM effect into a microscopic transport model with partonic degrees of freedom by following the algorithm of Zapp & Wiedemann. The Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal (LPM) effect is a quantum interference process that modifies the emission of radiation in the presence of a dense medium. In QCD this results in a quadratic length dependence for radiative energy loss. This is an important effect for the modification of jets by their passage through the QGP. We verify the leading parton energy loss in the model against the leading order Baier-Dokshitzer-Mueller-Peigne-Schiff-Zakharov (BDMPS-Z) result. We apply our model to the recent observations of the modification of di-jets at the LHC.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

Signals of the QCD Critical Point in Hydrodynamic Evolutions

The presence of a critical point in the QCD phase diagram can deform the trajectories describing the evolution of the expanding fireball in the QCD phase diagram. The deformation of the hydrodynamic trajectories will change the transverse velocity dependence of the proton-antiproton ratio when the fireball passes in the vicinity of the critical point. An unusual transverse velocity dependence of the anti-proton/proton ratio in a narrow beam energy window would thus signal the presence of the critical point.

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arXiv2009

The sound generated by a fast parton in the quark-gluon plasma is a crescendo

The total energy deposited into the medium per unit length by a fast parton traversing a quark-gluon plasma is calculated. We take the medium excitation due to collisions to be given by the well known expression for the collisional drag force. The parton's radiative energy loss contributes to the energy deposition because each radiated gluon acts as an additional source of collisional energy loss in the medium. In our model, this leads to a length dependence on the differential energy loss due to the interactions of radiated gluons with the medium. The final result, which is a sum of the primary and the secondary contributions, is then treated as the coefficient of a local hydrodynamic source term. Results are presented for energy density wave induced by two fast, back-to-back partons created in an initial hard interaction.

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arXiv2009

The sound produced by a fast parton in the quark-gluon plasma is a "crescendo"

We calculate the total energy deposited into the medium per unit length by fast partons traversing a quark-gluon plasma. The medium excitation due to collisions is taken to be given by the well known expression for the collisional drag force. The radiative energy loss of the parton contributes to the energy deposition because each radiated gluon acts as an additional source of collisional energy loss in the medium. We derive a differential equation which governs how the spectrum of radiated gluons is modified when this energy loss is taken into account. This modified spectrum is then used to calculate the additional energy deposition due to the interactions of radiated gluons with the medium. Numerical results are presented for the medium response for the case of two energetic back-to-back partons created in a hard interaction.

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arXiv2007

Nucleosynthesis in O-Ne-Mg Supernovae

We have studied detailed nucleosynthesis in the shocked surface layers of an Oxygen-Neon-Magnesium core collapse supernova with an eye to determining if the conditions are suitable for r process nucleosynthesis. We find no such conditions in an unmodified model, but do find overproduction of N=50 nuclei (previously seen in early neutron-rich neutrino winds) in amounts that, if ejected, would pose serious problems for galactic chemical evolution.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2005

Centrality Dependence of Direct Photons in Au+Au Collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV

We calculate the spectra of high energy photons emitted in relativistic Au+Au collisions for various centralities and compare to data recently collected at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider by the PHENIX collaboration. Our results for photons from primary hard scatterings and photons from interactions of jets with the medium are consistent with the measurements of neutral pion and direct photon production in p+p collisions and give a good description of direct photon spectra measured in Au+Au collisions. The contribution of photons from jet-to-photon conversion in the medium can be as large as the photon yield from hard scatterings in the momentum range p_T = 2...6 GeV/c. We show that this novel mechanism is not ruled out by any existing data.

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arXiv2005

Thermal Recombination: Beyond the Valence Quark Approximation

Quark counting rules derived from recombination models agree well with data on hadron production at intermediate transverse momenta in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. They convey a simple picture of hadrons consisting only of valence quarks. We discuss the inclusion of higher Fock states that add sea quarks and gluons to the hadron structure. We show that, when recombination occurs from a thermal medium, hadron spectra remain unaffected by the inclusion of higher Fock states. However, the quark number scaling for elliptic flow is somewhat affected. We discuss the implications for our understanding of data from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

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arXiv2005

Possible Resolutions of the D-Paradox

We propose possible ways of explaining the net charge event-by-event fluctuations in Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider within a quark recombination model. We discuss various methods of estimating the number of quarks at recombination and their implications for the predicted net charge fluctuations. We also discuss the possibility of diquark and quark-antiquark clustering above the deconfinement temperature.

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arXiv2004

Correlated Emission of Hadrons from Recombination of Correlated Partons

We discuss different sources of hadron correlations in relativistic heavy ion collisions. We show that correlations among partons in a quasi-thermal medium can lead to the correlated emission of hadrons by quark recombination and argue that this mechanism offers a plausible explanation for the dihadron correlations in the few GeV/c momentum range observed in Au+Au collisions at RHIC.

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arXiv2004

What is the temperature in heavy ion collisions?

We consider the Tsallis distribution as the source of the apparent slope of one-particle spectra in heavy-ion collisions and investigate the equation of state of this special quark matter in the framework of non-extensive thermodynamics.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2003

Heavy Ions at LHC: Theoretical Issues

We give a brief overview of our current theoretical understanding of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collision and the properties of super-hot nuclear matter. We focus on several issues that have been discussed in connection with experimental results from the CERN SPS and from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider RHIC. We give an extrapolation of our current knowledge to LHC energies and ask which physics questions can be addressed at the LHC.

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arXiv2003

Hadron production in heavy ion collisions: Fragmentation and recombination from a dense parton phase

We discuss hadron production in heavy ion collisions at RHIC. We argue that hadrons at transverse momenta P_T < 5 GeV are formed by recombination of partons from the dense parton phase created in central collisions at RHIC. We provide a theoretical description of the recombination process for P_T > 2 GeV. Below P_T = 2 GeV our results smoothly match a purely statistical description. At high transverse momentum hadron production is well described in the language of perturbative QCD by the fragmentation of partons. We give numerical results for a variety of hadron spectra, ratios and nuclear suppression factors. We also discuss the anisotropic flow v_2 and give results based on a flow in the parton phase. Our results are consistent with the existence of a parton phase at RHIC hadronizing at a temperature of 175 MeV and a radial flow velocity of 0.55c.

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arXiv2003

Hadronization in heavy ion collisions: recombination or fragmentation?

We show that hadron production in relativistic heavy ion collisions at transverse momenta larger than 2 GeV/c can be explained by the competition of two different hadronization mechanisms. Above 5 GeV/c hadron production can be described by fragmentation of partons that are created perturbatively. Below 5 GeV/c recombination of partons from the dense and hot fireball dominates. This can explain some of the surprising features of RHIC data like the constant baryon-to-meson ratio of about one and the small nuclear suppression for baryons between 2 to 4 GeV/c.

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arXiv2003

Hadronization in heavy ion collisions: Recombination and fragmentation of partons

We argue that the emission of hadrons with transverse momentum up to about 5 GeV/c in central relativistic heavy ion collisions is dominated by recombination, rather than fragmentation of partons. This mechanism provides a natural explanation for the observed constant baryon-to-meson ratio of about one and the apparent lack of a nuclear suppression of the baryon yield in this momentum range. Fragmentation becomes dominant at higher transverse momentum, but the transition point is delayed by the energy loss of fast partons in dense matter.

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