arXiv subjects

Christian Bierlich

Publications and source records attributed to Christian Bierlich.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Hadronic Rescattering in pA and AA Collisions

In a recent article we presented a model for hadronic rescattering, and some results were shown for pp collisions at LHC energies. In order to extend the studies to pA and AA collisions, the Angantyr model for heavy-ion collisions is taken as the starting point. Both these models are implemented within the general-purpose Monte Carlo event generator Pythia, which makes the matching reasonably straightforward, and allows for detailed studies of the full space--time evolution. The rescattering rate is significantly higher than in pp, especially for central AA collisions, where the typical primary hadron rescatters several times. We study the impact of rescattering on a number of distributions, such as pT and eta spectra, and the space--time evolution of the whole collision process. Notably rescattering is shown to give a significant contribution to elliptic flow in XeXe and PbPb, and to give a nontrivial impact on charm production.

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arXiv2020

Studies of heavy-ion collisions using PYTHIA Angantyr and UrQMD

In this paper, we show predictions from a new QGP-free, no-equilibration, improved baseline model for heavy-ion collisions. It is comprised of the PYTHIA Angantyr event generator coupled to UrQMD, as a hadronic cascade simulator, and compared to ALICE and CMS data from Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV. This coupling is made possible due to a new implementation of the hadron vertex model in PYTHIA Angantyr. Hadronic rescattering in UrQMD is shown to lead to a significant suppression of mid- to high-$p_\perp$ particle yields that is qualitatively consistent with measurements of nuclear modification factors. We further study the effect of hadronic rescatterings on high-$p_\perp$ particles by using two-particle correlations and show that some suppression of away-side jets occurs in the hadronic phase even without any partonic energy loss. Finally, the decorrelation of dijet structures at high momenta also leads to a reduction of the elliptic flow coefficient $v_{2}\{2\}$. These findings suggest that significant jet-quenching-like effects may still originate in the hadronic, as opposed to the partonic phase and prove that the usual Pb-Pb baseline, composed of a superposition of incoherent pp collisions, ignores coherent phenomena that are not strictly related to the QGP but may still be highly relevant.

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arXiv2020

Setting the string shoving picture in a new frame

Based on the recent success of the \angantyr model in describing multiplicity distributions of the hadronic final state in high energy heavy ion collisions, we investigate how far one can go with a such a string-based scenario to describe also flow effects measured in such collisions. For this purpose we improve our previous so-called \textit{shoving} model, where strings that are close in space--time tend to repel each other in a way that could generate anisotropic flow, and we find that this model can indeed generate such flows in Å collisions. The flow generated is not quite enough to reproduce measurements, but we identify some short-comings in the presented implementation of the model that, when fixed, could plausibly give a more realistic amount of flow.

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arXiv2020

New opportunities at the photon energy frontier

Ultra-peripheral collisions (UPCs) involving heavy ions and protons are the energy frontier for photon-mediated interactions. UPC photons can be used for many purposes, including probing low-$x$ gluons via photoproduction of dijets and vector mesons, probes of beyond-standard-model processes, such as those enabled by light-by-light scattering, and studies of two-photon production of the Higgs.

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arXiv2020

Novel tools and observables for jet physics in heavy-ion collisions

Studies of fully-reconstructed jets in heavy-ion collisions aim at extracting thermodynamical and transport properties of hot and dense QCD matter. Recently, a plethora of new jet substructure observables have been theoretically and experimentally developed that provide novel precise insights on the modifications of the parton radiation pattern induced by a QCD medium. This report, summarizing the main lines of discussion at the 5th Heavy Ion Jet Workshop and CERN TH institute "Novel tools and observables for jet physics in heavy-ion collisions" in 2017, presents a first attempt at outlining a strategy for isolating and identifying the relevant physical processes that are responsible for the observed medium-induced jet modifications. These studies combine theory insights, based on the Lund parton splitting map, with sophisticated jet reconstruction techniques, including grooming and background subtraction algorithms.

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arXiv2020

Sources of multiparticle correlations: a microscopic perspective

Multiparticle correlations is a hallmark measurement characterizing the behaviour of the assumed Quark Gluon Plasma in heavy ion collisions. In these proceedings an alternative, microscopic approach is resented, based on interacting strings and multiparton interactions.

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arXiv2020

Confronting Experimental Data with Heavy-Ion Models: Rivet for Heavy Ions

The Rivet library is an important toolkit in particle physics, and serves as a repository for analysis data and code. It allows for comparisons between data and theoretical calculations of the final state of collision events. This paper outlines several recent additions and improvements to the framework to include support for analysis of heavy ion collision simulated data. The paper also presents examples of these recent developments and their applicability in implementing concrete physics analyses.

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arXiv2019

Studying the effect of the hadronic phase in nuclear collisions with PYTHIA and UrQMD

In this work, we couple Pb-Pb events simulated with the PYTHIA Angantyr event generator at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}=2.76$ and $5.02$~TeV with the hadronic cascade simulator UrQMD to study the effect of the hadronic phase on observables such as charged-particle multiplicity densities, transverse momentum spectra and identified particle ratios, giving special emphasis to short-lived resonances.

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arXiv2019

Dipole evolution: perspectives for collectivity and $γ^*$A collisions

The transverse, spatial structure of protons is an area revealing fundamental properties of matter, and provides key input for deeper understanding of emerging collective phenomena in high energy collisions of protons, as well as collisions of heavy ions. In this paper eccentricities and eccentricity fluctuations are predicted using the dipole formulation of BFKL evolution. Furthermore, first steps are taken towards generation of fully exclusive final states of $γ^*$A collisions, by assessing the importance of colour fluctuations in the initial state. Such steps are crucial for the preparation of event generators for a future electron-ion collider. Due to the connection between an impact parameter picture of the proton structure, and cross sections of ep and pp collisions, the model parameters can be fully determined by fits to such quantities, leaving results as real predictions of the model.

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arXiv2019

Soft modifications to jet fragmentation in high energy proton-proton collisions

The discovery of collectivity in proton-proton collisions, is one of the most puzzling outcomes from the two first runs at LHC, as it points to the possibility of creation of a Quark-Gluon Plasma, earlier believed to only be created in heavy ion collisions. One key observation from heavy ion collisions is still not observed in proton-proton, namely jet-quenching. In this letter it is shown how a model capable of describing soft collective features of proton-proton collisions, also predicts modifications to jet fragmentation properties. With this starting point, several new observables suited for the present and future hunt for jet quenching in small collision systems are proposed.

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arXiv2018

The Angantyr model for Heavy-Ion Collisions in PYTHIA8

We present a new model for building up complete exclusive hadronic final states in high energy nucleus collisions. It is a direct extrapolation of high energy pp collisions (as described by PYTHIA), and thus bridges a large part of the existing gap between heavy ion and high energy physics phenomenology. The model is inspired by the old Fritiof model and the notion of wounded nucleons. Two essential features are the treatment of multi-parton interactions and diffractive excitation in each NN sub-collision. Diffractive excitation is related to fluctuations in the nucleon partonic sub-structure, and fluctuations in both projectile and target are here included for the first time. The model is able to give a good description of general final-state properties such as multiplicity and transverse momentum distributions, both in pA and AA collisions. The model can therefore serve as a baseline for understanding the non-collective background to observables sensitive to collective behaviour. As PYTHIA does not include a mechanism to reproduce the collective effects seen in pp collisions, such effects are also not reproduced by the present version of Angantyr. Effects of high string density, shown to be able to reproduce e.g. higher strangeness ratios and the ridge in pp, will be added in future studies

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arXiv2018

Microscopic collectivity: The ridge and strangeness enhancement from string-string interactions

We present the microscopic model for collective effects, built on string-string interactions (string shoving and rope hadronization), recently implemented in the PYTHIA 8 and DIPSY event generators. Rope hadronization is shown to give a good description of strangeness enhancement across pp, pA and AA collisions systems, while string shoving qualitatively describes the ridge observed in pp collisions.

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arXiv2018

PISTA: Posterior Ion STAcking

We present a program allowing for the construction of a heavy ion Monte Carlo event using a general purpose proton--proton event generator of the users' choice to deliver sub--collisions. In this heavy ion event, one or more jets can be added, again using a jet calculation of the users' choice, allowing for more realistic simulation studies of jets in a heavy ion background.

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arXiv2017

Collectivity without plasma in hadronic collisions

We present a microscopic model for collective effects in high multiplicity proton--proton collisions, where multiple partonic subcollisions give rise to a dense system of strings. From lattice calculations we know that QCD strings are transversely extended, and we argue that this should result in a transverse pressure and expansion, similar to the flow in a deconfined plasma. The model is implemented in the PYTHIA8 Monte Carlo event generator, and we find that it can qualitatively reproduce the long range azimuthal correlations forming a near-side ridge in high multiplicity proton--proton events at LHC energies.

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arXiv2017

Rope Hadronization and Strange Particle Production

Rope Hadronization is a model extending the Lund string hadronization model to describe environments with many overlapping strings, such as high multiplicity pp collisions or $AA$ collisions. Including effects of Rope Hadronization drastically improves description of strange/non-strange hadron ratios as function of event multiplicity in all systems from $e^+ e^-$ to $AA$. Implementation of Rope Hadronization in the MC event generators DIPSY and Pythia8 is discussed, as well as future prospects for jet studies and studies of small systems.

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arXiv2016

A shoving model for collectivity in hadronic collisions

An extension of the rope hadronization model, which has previously provided good descriptions of hadrochemistry in high multiplicity pp collisions, is presented. The extension includes a dynamically generated transverse pressure, produced by the excess energy from overlapping strings. We find that this model can qualitatively reproduce soft features of Quark Gluon Plasma in small systems, such as higher $\langle p_\perp \rangle$ for heavier particles and long range azimuthal correlations forming a ridge. The effects are similar to those obtained from a hydrodynamic expansion, but without assuming a thermalized medium.

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arXiv2016

Multiparton interactions: From pp to pA

In the process of understanding nuclear collisions, reliable extrapolations from pp collisions, based on Glauber models, are highly desirable, though seldomly accurate. We review the inclusion of diffractive excitations and argue that they provide an important contribution to centrality observables in pA collisions. We present a method for distinguishing between diffractively and non-diffractively wounded nucleons, and a proof-of-principle for an extrapolation of multiparton interaction models built on this.

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arXiv2016

Effects of Colour Reconnection on Hadron Flavour Observables

We present a comparison between two recently developed colour reconnection models, the new colour reconnection model in PYTHIA and the DIPSY rope hadronization model. Specifically we investigate ratios of identified hadron yields as a function of the final-state activity, as measured by the charged multiplicity. Since both models have a nontrivial dependence on the final-state activity, the above observables serve as excellent probes to test the effect of these models. Both models show a clear baryon enhancement with increasing multiplicity, while only the DIPSY rope model leads to a strangeness enhancement. Flow-like patterns, previously found to be connected to colour reconnection models, are investigated for the new models. Only PYTHIA shows a $p_\perp$-dependent enhancement of the $Λ/K$ ratio as the final-state activity increases, with the enhancement being largest in the mid-$p_\perp$ region.

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