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Charles Gale

Publications and source records attributed to Charles Gale.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

3+1D hydrodynamic simulation of relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We present MUSIC, an implementation of the Kurganov-Tadmor algorithm for relativistic 3+1 dimensional fluid dynamics in heavy-ion collision scenarios. This Riemann-solver-free, second-order, high-resolution scheme is characterized by a very small numerical viscosity and its ability to treat shocks and discontinuities very well. We also incorporate a sophisticated algorithm for the determination of the freeze-out surface using a three dimensional triangulation of the hyper-surface. Implementing a recent lattice based equation of state, we compute p_T-spectra and pseudorapidity distributions for Au+Au collisions at root s = 200 GeV and present results for the anisotropic flow coefficients v_2 and v_4 as a function of both p_T and pseudorapidity. We were able to determine v_4 with high numerical precision, finding that it does not strongly depend on the choice of initial condition or equation of state.

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Toward Large N Thermal QCD from Dual Gravity: The Heavy Quarkonium Potential

We continue our study on the gravity duals for strongly coupled large N QCD with fundamental flavors both at zero and non-zero temperatures. The gravity dual at zero temperature captures the logarithmic runnings of the coupling constants at far IR and the almost conformal, albeit strongly coupled, behavior at the UV. The full UV completion of gauge theory is accomplished in the gravity side by attaching an AdS cap to the IR geometry described in our previous work. Attaching such an AdS cap is highly non-trivial because it amounts to finding the right interpolating geometry and sources that take us from a gravity solution with non-zero three-form fluxes to another one that has almost vanishing three-form fluxes. In this paper we give a concrete realisation of such a scenario, completing the program advocated in our earlier paper. One of the main advantage of having such a background, in addition to providing a dual description of the required gauge theory, is the absence of Landau poles and consequently the UV divergences of the Wilson loops. The potential for the heaviest fundamental quark anti-quark pairs, which are like the heavy quarkonium states in realistic QCD, can be computed and their linear behavior at large separations and zero temperature could be demonstrated. At small separations the expected Coulombic behavior appears to dominate. On the other hand, at non-zero temperatures interesting properties like heavy quarkonium type suppressions and melting are shown to emerge from our gravity dual. We provide some discussions of the melting temperature and compare our results with the Charmonium spectrum and lattice simulations. We argue that, in spite of the large N nature of our construction, certain model-independent predictions can be made.

hep-th↗

Five Easy Pieces: The Dynamics of Quarks in Strongly Coupled Plasmas

We revisit the analysis of the drag a massive quark experiences and the wake it creates at a temperature T while moving through a plasma using a gravity dual that captures the renormalisation group runnings in the dual gauge theory. Our gravity dual has a black hole and seven branes embedded via Ouyang embedding, but the geometry is a deformation of the usual conifold metric. In particular the gravity dual has squashed two spheres, and a small resolution at the IR. Using this background we show that the drag of a massive quark receives corrections that are proportional to powers of log T when compared with the drag computed using AdS/QCD correspondence. We use the perturbation produced by the quark strings to compute the wake and compare with the results obtained using AdS/QCD correspondence. We also study the shear viscosity with running couplings, analyze the viscosity to entropy ratio and compare the result with the known bound. In the presence of higher order curvature square corrections from the back-reactions of the embedded D7 branes, we argue the possibility of the entropy to viscosity bound being violated. Finally, we show that our set-up could in-principle allow us to study a family of gauge theories at the boundary by cutting off the dual geometry respectively at various points in the radial direction. All these gauge theories can have well defined UV completions, and more interestingly, we demonstrate that any thermodynamical quantities derived from these theories would be completely independent of the cut-off scale and only depend on the temperature at which we define these theories. Such a result would justify the holographic renormalisabilities of these theories which we, in turn, also demonstrate. We give physical interpretations of these results and compare them with more realistic scenarios.

hep-th↗

MARTINI - Monte Carlo simulation of jet evolution

We present the Modular Algorithm for Relativistic Treatment of heavy IoN Interactions (MARTINI), an event generator for the hard and penetrating probes in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. The simulation consists of a time evolution model for the soft background, such as hydrodynamics, PYTHIA 8.1 to generate and hadronize the hard partons after the medium evolution, which is based on the McGill-AMY formalism and includes both radiative and elastic processes. MARTINI allows for the generation of full event configurations in the high transverse momentum region. We present results for the neutral pion and photon nuclear modification factor in Au+Au collisions at RHIC.

hep-ph↗

MARTINI: An event generator for relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We introduce the Modular Algorithm for Relativistic Treatment of heavy IoN Interactions (MARTINI), a comprehensive event generator for the hard and penetrating probes in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. Its main components are a time evolution model for the soft background, PYTHIA 8.1 and the McGill-AMY parton evolution scheme including radiative as well as elastic processes. This allows us to generate full event configurations in the high p_T region that take into account thermal QCD and QED effects as well as effects of the evolving medium. We present results for the neutral pion nuclear modification factor in Au+Au collisions at RHIC as a function of p_T for different centralities, and also as a function of the angle with respect to the reaction plane for non-central collisions. Furthermore, we study the production of high transverse momentum photons incorporating a complete set of photon-production channels.

hep-ph↗

A Reanalysis of Single Photon Data at CERN SPS

We reanalyze the WA98 single photon data at CERN SPS by incorporating several recent developments in the study of prompt and thermal photon production from relativistic heavy ion collisions. Isospin and shadowing corrected NLO pQCD, along with an optimized scale for factorization, fragmentation and renormalization are considered for prompt photon production. Photons from thermal medium are estimated by considering a boost invariant azimuthally anisotropic hydrodynamic expansion of the plasma along with a well tested equation of state and initial conditions. A quantitative explanation of the data is obtained by combining $κ\times$ prompt with thermal photons, where $κ$ is an overall scaling factor. We show that, elliptic flow of thermal photons can play a crucial role to distinguish between the `with' and `without' phase transition scenarios at SPS energy.

nucl-th↗

Jet quenching and the gravity dual

We compute the momentum broadening of an energetic parton as it moves through strongly interacting matter, using the gravity dual of a non conformal gauge theory with matter in the fundamental representation. Our approach defines a family of theories, all of which have logarithmic running of the couplings in the far IR but becomes almost conformal in the far UV. For a given set of degrees of freedom, we obtain average transverse momentum square of the parton as a function of temperature and compare with results obtained from the AdS/CFT correspondence.

hep-ph↗

The Double Life of Thermal QCD

We study the gravity dual of a thermal gauge theory whose behavior parallels that of thermal QCD in the far IR. The UV of our theory has infinite degrees of freedom. We holographically renormalize the supergravity action to compute the stress tensor of the dual gauge theory with fundamental flavors incorporating the logarithmic running of the gauge coupling. From the stress tensor we obtain the shear viscosity and the entropy of the medium at a temperature T, and investigate the violation of the bound for the viscosity to the entropy ratio. This is a shortened and simplified companion paper to arXiv:0902.1540, and is based on the talks given by M. Mia at the "Strong and Electroweak Matter 2008" workshop and the McGill workshop on "AdS/CFT, Condensed Matter and QCD" in the fall of 2008.

hep-th↗

Jet energy loss, photon production, and photon-hadron correlations at RHIC

Jet energy loss, photon production and photon-hadron correlations are studied together at high transverse momentum in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC energies. The modification of hard jets traversing a hot and dense nuclear medium is evaluated by consistently taking into account induced gluon radiation and elastic collisions. The production of high transverse momentum photons in Au+Au collisions at RHIC is calculated by incorporating a complete set of photon-production channels. Comparison with experimental photon production and photon-hadron correlation data is performed, using a (3+1)-dimensional relativistic hydrodynamic description of the thermalized medium created in these collisions. Our results demonstrate that the interaction between the hard jets and the soft medium is important for the study of photon production and of photon-hadron correlation at RHIC.

hep-ph↗

The evolving distribution of hard partons traversing a hot strongly interacting plasma

We present results for the evolution of the momentum distribution of a hard parton traversing a brick of quark-gluon plasma, considering both bremsstrahlung and collisional energy loss. The complete leading order transition rates are included. We find a significant modification of the evolving momentum distribution compared to results obtained by employing an approximate implementation of the collisional energy loss that uses the mean energy loss, together with momentum diffusion.

hep-ph↗

Photon Production in Hot and Dense Strongly Interacting Matter

This text is meant as an introduction to the theoretical physics of photon emission in hot and dense strongly interacting matter, the principal application being relativistic nuclear collisions. We shall cover some of the results and techniques appropriate for studies at SPS, RHIC, and LHC energies

hep-ph↗

Systematic Comparison of Jet Energy-Loss Schemes in a realistic hydrodynamic medium

We perform a systematic comparison of three different jet energy-loss approaches. These include the Armesto-Salgado-Wiedemann scheme based on the approach of Baier-Dokshitzer-Mueller-Peigne-Schiff and Zakharov (BDMPS-Z/ASW), the Higher Twist approach (HT) and a scheme based on the approach of Arnold-Moore-Yaffe (AMY). In this comparison, an identical medium evolution will be utilized for all three approaches: not only does this entail the use of the same realistic three-dimensional relativistic fluid dynamics (RFD) simulation, but also includes the use of identical initial parton-distribution functions and final fragmentation functions. We are, thus, in a unique position, not only to isolate fundamental differences between the various approaches, but also to make rigorous calculations for different experimental measurements using "state of the art" components. All three approaches are reduced to a version which contains only one free tunable parameter, this is then related to the well known transport parameter $\hat{q}$. We find that the parameters of all three calculations can be adjusted to provide a good description of inclusive data on $R_{AA}$ versus transverse momentum. However, we do observe slight differences in their predictions for the centrality and azimuthal angular dependence of $R_{AA}$ vs. $p_T$. We also note that the value of the transport coefficient $\hat{q}$ in the three approaches to describe the data differs significantly.

nucl-th↗

The dissociation of the J/psi by light mesons and chiral symmetry

The implication of chiral symmetry for the pion-induced dissociation of the J/psi is examined in detail. It is shown how the low-energy dynamics of pions, constrained by chiral symmetry, affect the dissociation cross-section. The derived soft-pion theorem is then integrated into a Lagrangian model which includes also abnormal parity content and chiral-symmetric form factors. Dissociation by the rho meson is also considered.

hep-ph↗

Photons from nuclear collisions at RHIC energies

We model the hot and dense strongly interacting mater produced in high energy heavy ion collisions using relativistic hydrodynamics. Several different sources of real photons produced during these collisions are considered and their relative importance is assessed. We include contributions from QCD jets, which are allowed to loose and gain energy as they proceed through the hot matter. This is treated within the AMY formalism. We obtain photon spectra, R_{AA}, and v_2 in agreement with measurements performed by the PHENIX collaboration.

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Radiative jet energy loss in a three-dimensional hydrodynamical medium and high $p_T$ azimuthal asymmetry of $π_0$ suppression at mid and forward rapidity at RHIC

The nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$ for $π_0$ production in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ AGeV is calculated, and studied at high transverse momenta $p_T$. The soft thermalized nuclear medium is described within the framework of relativistic ideal three-dimensional hydrodynamics. The energy loss of partonic jets is evaluated in the context of gluon bremsstrahlung in the thermalized partonic matter. We provide a systematic analysis of the azimuthal asymmetry of $π_0$ suppression at high $p_T$ in central and non-central collisions, at mid and forward rapidity. The determination of $R_{AA}$ as a function of $p_T$, at different azimuthal angles, and different rapidities makes for a stringent test of our theoretical understanding of jet energy loss over a variety of in-medium path lengths, temperatures and initial partonic jet energies. This lays the groundwork for a precise tomography of the nuclear medium.

hep-ph↗

Electromagnetic radiation from nuclear collisions at RHIC energies

The hot and dense strongly interacting matter created in collisions of heavy nuclei at RHIC energies is modeled with relativistic hydrodynamics, and the spectra of real and virtual photons produced at mid-rapidity in these events are calculated. Several different sources are considered, and their relative importance is compared. Specifically, we include jet fragmentation, jet-plasma interactions, the emission of radiation from the thermal medium and from primordial hard collisions. Our calculations consistently take into account jet energy loss, as evaluated in the AMY formalism. We obtain results for the spectra, the nuclear modification factor (R_AA), and the azimuthal anisotropy (v_2) that agree with the photon measurements performed by the PHENIX collaboration at RHIC.

hep-ph↗

Low Mass Dimuons Produced in Relativistic Nuclear Collisions

The NA60 experiment has measured low-mass muon pair production in In-In collisions at 158 A GeV with unprecedented precision. We show that this data is reproduced very well by a dynamical model with parameters scaled from fits to measurements of hadronic transverse mass spectra and Hanbury-Brown and Twiss correlations in Pb-Pb and Pb-Au collisions at the same energy. The data is consistent with in-medium properties of $ρ$ and $ω$-mesons at finite temperature and density as deduced from empirical forward-scattering amplitudes. Inclusion of the vacuum decay of the $ρ$-meson after freeze-out is necessary for an understanding of the mass and transverse momentum spectrum of dimuons with $M \apprle 0.9 {\rm GeV}/c^2$.

hep-ph↗