arXiv subjects

Dmitri E. Kharzeev

Publications and source records attributed to Dmitri E. Kharzeev.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

"Strongly interacting matter in magnetic fields": an overview

This is an introduction to the volume of Lecture Notes in Physics on "Strongly interacting matter in magnetic fields". The volume combines contributions written by a number of experts on different aspects of the problem. The response of QCD matter to intense magnetic fields has attracted a lot of interest recently. On the theoretical side, this interest stems from the possibility to explore the plethora of novel phenomena arising from the interplay of magnetic field with QCD dynamics. On the experimental side, the interest is motivated by the recent results on the behavior of quark-gluon plasma in a strong magnetic field created in relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC. The purpose of this introduction is to provide a brief overview and a guide to the individual contributions where these topics are covered in detail.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Jet energy loss and fragmentation in heavy ion collisions

Recent LHC results indicate a suppression of jet fragmentation functions in Pb-Pb collisions at intermediate values of $ξ=\ln(1/z)$. This seems to contradict the picture of energy loss based on the induced QCD radiation that is expected to lead to the enhancement of in-medium fragmentation functions. We use an effective 1+1 dimensional quasi-Abelian model to describe the dynamical modification of jet fragmentation in the medium. We find that this approach describes the data, and argue that there is no contradiction between the LHC results and the picture of QCD radiation induced by the in-medium scattering of the jet. The physics that underlies the suppression of the in-medium fragmentation function at intermediate values of $ξ=\ln(1/z)$ is the partial screening of the color charge of the jet by the comoving medium-induced gluon.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Gluon saturation in $pA$ collisions at the LHC: KLN model predictions for hadron multiplicities

The upcoming p+Pb run at the LHC will probe the nuclear gluon distribution at very small Bjorken x (from $x \sim 10^{-4}$ at mid-rapidity down to $x \sim 10^{-6}$ in the proton fragmentation region) and will allow to test approaches based on parton saturation. Here, we present the predictions of the KLN model for hadron multiplicities and multiplicity distributions in p+Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 4.4 TeV. We also compare the model to the existing pp, dA and AA data from RHIC and LHC.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Holographic Pomeron and the Schwinger Mechanism

We revisit the problem of dipole-dipole scattering via exchanges of soft Pomerons in the context of holographic QCD. We show that a single closed string exchange contribution to the eikonalized dipole-dipole scattering amplitude yields a Regge behavior of the elastic amplitude; the corresponding slope and intercept are different from previous results obtained by a variational analysis of semi-classical surfaces. We provide a physical interpretation of the semi-classical worldsheets driving the Regge behavior for (-t)>0 in terms of worldsheet instantons. The latter describe the Schwinger mechanism for string pair creation by an electric field, where the longitudinal electric field E_L=σ_T tanh(χ/2) at the origin of this non-perturbative mechanism is induced by the relative rapidity χ of the scattering dipoles. Our analysis naturally explains the diffusion in the impact parameter space encoded in the Pomeron exchange; in our picture, it is due to the Unruh temperature of accelerated strings under the electric field. We also argue for the existence of a "micro-fireball" in the middle of the transverse space due to the soft Pomeron exchange, which may be at the origin of the thermal character of multiparticle production in ep/pp collisions. After summing over uncorrelated multi-Pomeron exchanges, we find that the total dipole-dipole cross section obeys the Froissart unitarity bound.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

The Chern-Simons diffusion rate in strongly coupled N=4 SYM plasma in an external magnetic field

We calculate the Chern-Simons diffusion rate in a strongly coupled N=4 SUSY Yang-Mills plasma in the presence of a constant external $U(1)_R$ magnetic flux via the holographic correspondence. Due to the strong interactions between the charged fields and non-Abelian gauge fields, the external Abelian magnetic field affects the thermal Yang-Mills dynamics and increases the diffusion rate, regardless of its strength. We obtain the analytic results for the Chern-Simons diffusion rate both in the weak and strong magnetic field limits. In the latter limit, we show that the diffusion rate scales as $B\times T^2$ and this can be understood as a result of a dynamical dimensional reduction.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Electric dipole moment induced by a QCD instanton in an external magnetic field

In the chiral magnetic effect, there is a competition between a strong magnetic field, which tends to project positively charged particles to have spin aligned along the magnetic field, and a chirality imbalance which may be produced locally by a topologically nontrivial gauge field such as an instanton. We study the properties of the Euclidean Dirac equation for a light fermion in the presence of both a constant abelian magnetic field and an SU(2) instanton. In particular, we analyze the zero modes analytically in various limits, both on R^4 and on the four-torus, in order to compare with recent lattice QCD results, and study the implications for the electric dipole moment.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

LPM effect as the origin of the jet fragmentation scaling in heavy ion collisions

We address a recent puzzling result from the LHC: the jet fragmentation functions measured in $PbPb$ and $pp$ collisions appear very similar in spite of a large medium-induced energy loss (we will call this "jet fragmentation scaling", JFS). To model the real-time non-perturbative effects in the propagation of a high energy jet through the strongly coupled QCD matter, we adopt an effective dimensionally reduced description in terms of the $(1+1)$ quasi-Abelian Schwinger theory. This theory is exactly soluble at any value of the coupling and shares with QCD the properties of dynamical generation of "mesons" with a finite mass and the screening of "quark" charge that are crucial for describing the transition of the jet into hadrons. We find that this approach describes quite well the vacuum jet fragmentation in $e^+e^-$ annihilation at $z\geq0.2$ at jet energies in the range of the LHC heavy ion measurements ($z$ is the ratio of hadron and jet momenta). In QCD medium, we find that the JFS is reproduced if the mean free path $λ$ of the jet is short, $λ\leq 0.3$ fm, which is in accord with the small shear viscosity inferred from the measurements of the collective flow. The JFS holds since at short mean free path the quantum interference (analogous to the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal effect in QED) causes the produced mesons to have low momenta $p \sim m$, where $m \simeq 0.6$ GeV is the typical meson mass. Meanwhile the induced jet energy loss at short mean free path is much larger than naively expected in string models.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Chiral helix in AdS/CFT with flavor

The D3/D7 holographic model aims at a better approximation to QCD by adding to N=4 SYM theory N_f of N=2 supersymmetric hypermultiplets in the fundamental representation of SU(N_c) -- the "flavor fields" representing the quarks. Motivated by a recent observation of the importance of the Wess-Zumino-like (WZ) term for realizing the chiral magnetic effect within this model, we revisit the phase diagram of the finite temperature, massless D3/D7 model in the presence of external electric/magnetic fields and at finite chemical potential. We point out that the A-V-V triangle anomaly represented by the WZ term in the D7 brane probe action implies the existence of new phases that have been overlooked in the previous studies. In the case of an external magnetic field and at finite chemical potential, we find a "chiral helix" phase in which the U(1)_A angle of D7 brane embedding increases monotonically along the direction of the magnetic field -- this is a geometric realization of the chiral spiral phase in QCD. We also show that in the case of parallel electric and magnetic fields (E,B) there exists a phase in which the D7 brane spontaneously begins to rotate, so that the U(1)_A angle changes as a function of time -- this may be called the "spontaneous rotation" phase; it is a geometrical realization of a phase with non-zero chiral chemical potential. Our results call for a more thorough study of the (T,B,E,μ) phase diagram of the massless D3/D7 model taking a complete account of the WZ term. We also speculate about the possible phase diagram in the massive case.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

The Chiral MagnetoHydroDynamics of QCD fluid at RHIC and LHC

The experimental results on heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC indicate that QCD plasma behaves as a nearly perfect fluid described by relativistic hydrodynamics. Hydrodynamics is an effective low-energy Theory Of Everything stating that the response of a system to external perturbations is dictated by conservation laws that are a consequence of the symmetries of the underlying theory. In the case of QCD fluid produced in heavy ion collisions, this theory possesses anomalies, so some of the apparent classical symmetries are broken by quantum effects. Even though the anomalies appear as a result of UV regularization and so look like a short distance phenomenon, it has been realized recently that they also affect the large distance, macroscopic behavior in hydrodynamics. One of the manifestations of anomalies in relativistic hydrodynamics is the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME). At this conference, a number of evidences for CME have been presented, including i) the disappearance of charge asymmetry fluctuations in the low-energy RHIC data where the energy density is thought to be below the critical one for deconfinement; ii) the observation of charge asymmetry fluctuations in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC. Here I give a three-page summary of some of the recent theoretical and experimental developments and of the future tests that may allow to establish (or to refute) the CME as the origin of the observed charge asymmetry fluctuations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Anomalies and time reversal invariance in relativistic hydrodynamics: the second order and higher dimensional formulations

We present two new results on relativistic hydrodynamics with anomalies and external electromagnetic fields, "Chiral MagnetoHydroDynamics" (CMHD). First, we study CMHD in four dimensions at second order in the derivative expansion assuming the conformal/Weyl invariance. We classify all possible independent conformal second order viscous corrections to the energy-momentum tensor and to the U(1) current in the presence of external electric and/or magnetic fields, and identify eighteen terms that originate from the triangle anomaly. We then propose and motivate the following guiding principle to constrain the CMHD: the anomaly--induced terms that are even under the time reversal invariance should not contribute to the local entropy production rate. This allows us to fix thirteen out of the eighteen transport coefficients that enter the second order formulation of CMHD. We also relate one of our second order transport coefficients to the chiral shear waves. Our second subject is hydrodynamics with (N+1)-gon anomaly in an arbitrary 2N dimensions. The effects from the (N+1)-gon anomaly appear in hydrodynamics at (N-1)'th order in the derivative expansion, and we identify precisely N such corrections to the U(1) current. The time reversal constraint is powerful enough to allow us to find the analytic expressions for all transport coefficients. We confirm the validity of our results (and of the proposed guiding principle) by an explicit fluid/gravity computation within the AdS/CFT correspondence.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Anomaly-induced Quadrupole Moment of the Neutron in Magnetic Field

The neutrons cannot possess a quadrupole moment in the vacuum. Nevertheless, we show that in the presence of an external magnetic field the neutrons acquire a new type of quadrupole moment $Q^{ij}= χ\,σ^i B^j$ involving the components of spin and magnetic field. This "chiral magnetic" quadrupole moment arises from the interplay of the chiral anomaly and the magnetic field; we estimate its value for the neutron in the static limit, and find $χ\simeq 1.35\cdot10^{-2}\,{\rm fm}^4$. The detection of the quadrupole moment of the neutron would provide a novel test of the role of the chiral anomaly in low-energy QCD and can be possible in the presence of both magnetic and inhomogeneous electric fields. The quadrupole moment of the neutron may affect e.g. the properties of neutron stars and magnetars.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Chiral magnetic wave at finite baryon density and the electric quadrupole moment of quark-gluon plasma in heavy ion collisions

Chiral Magnetic Wave (CMW) is a gapless collective excitation of quark-gluon plasma in the presence of external magnetic field that stems from the interplay of Chiral Magnetic (CME) and Chiral Separation Effects (CSE); it is composed by the waves of the electric and chiral charge densities coupled by the axial anomaly. We consider CMW at finite baryon density and find that it induces the electric quadrupole moment of the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy ion collisions: the "poles" of the produced fireball (pointing outside of the reaction plane) acquire additional positive electric charge, and the "equator" acquires additional negative charge. We point out that this electric quadrupole deformation lifts the degeneracy between the elliptic flows of positive and negative pions leading to $v_2(π^+) < v_2(π^-)$, and estimate the magnitude of the effect.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Chiral Magnetic Wave

We consider a relativistic plasma containing charged chiral fermions in an external magnetic field, e.g a chirally symmetric quark-gluon plasma created in relativistic heavy ion collisions. We show that triangle anomalies imply the existence of a new type of collective gapless excitation in this system that stems from the coupling between the density waves of the electric and chiral charges; we call it "the Chiral Magnetic Wave" (CMW). The CMW exists even in a neutral plasma, i.e. in the absence of the axial and vector chemical potentials. We demonstrate the existence of CMW and study its properties using three different approaches: i) relativistic magnetohydrodynamics; ii) dimensional reduction to $(1+1)$ Sine-Gordon model, appropriate in a strong magnetic field; and iii) holographic QCD (Sakai-Sugimoto model), appropriate at strong coupling. We also briefly discuss the phenomenological implications of the CMW for heavy ion collisions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

Axial anomaly, Dirac sea, and the chiral magnetic effect

Gribov viewed the axial anomaly as a manifestation of the collective motion of charged fermions with arbitrarily high momenta in the vacuum. In the presence of an external magnetic field and a chirality imbalance, this collective motion becomes directly observable in the form of the electric current - this is the chiral magnetic effect (CME). I give an elementary introduction into the physics of CME, and discuss some recent developments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Testing the chiral magnetic and chiral vortical effects in heavy ion collisions

We devise a test of the Chiral Magnetic and Chiral Vortical effects (CME and CVE) in relativistic heavy ion collisions that relies only on the general properties of triangle anomalies. We show that the ratio $R_{EB}=J_E/J_B$ of charge $J_E$ and baryon $J_B$ currents for CME is $R^{\rm CME}_{EB} \to \infty$ for three light flavors of quarks ($N_f =3$), and $R^{\rm CME}_{EB} = 5$ for $N_f =2$, whereas for CVE it is $R^{\rm CVE}_{EB} =0$ for $N_f =3$ and $R^{\rm CME}_{EB} = 1/2$ for $N_f =2$. The physical world with light $u,d$ quarks and a heavier $s$ quark is in between the $N_f =2$ and $N_f =3$ cases; therefore, the ratios $R_{EB}$ for CME and CVE should differ by over an order of magnitude. Since the ratio of electric charge and baryon asymmetries is proportional to $R_{EB}$, the measurement of baryon and electric charge asymmetry fluctuations should allow to separate clearly the CME and CVE contributions. In both cases, there has to be a positive correlation between the charge and baryon number asymmetries that can be tested on the event-by-event basis. At a lower collision energy, as the baryon number density increases and the CVE potentially plays a role, we expect the emergence of the baryon number asymmetry.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Quark fragmentation in the $θ$-vacuum

The vacuum of Quantum Chromodynamics is a superposition of degenerate states with different topological numbers that are connected by tunneling (the $θ$-vacuum). The tunneling events are due to topologically non-trivial configurations of gauge fields (e.g. the instantons) that induce local $\p$-odd domains in Minkowski space-time. We study the quark fragmentation in this topologically non-trivial QCD background. We find that even though QCD globally conserves $\p$ and $\cp$ symmetries, two new kinds of $\p$-odd fragmentation functions emerge. They generate interesting dihadron correlations: one is the azimuthal angle correlation $\sim \cos(ϕ_1 + ϕ_2)$ usually referred to as the Collins effect, and the other is the $\p$-odd correlation $\sim \sin(ϕ_1 + ϕ_2)$ that vanishes in the cross section summed over many events, but survives on the event-by-event basis. Using the chiral quark model we estimate the magnitude of these new fragmentation functions. We study their experimental manifestations in dihadron production in $e^+e^-$ collisions, and comment on the applicability of our approach in deep-inelastic scattering, proton-proton and heavy ion collisions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Chiral Magnetic Spiral

We argue that the presence of a very strong magnetic field in the chirally broken phase induces inhomogeneous expectation values, of a spiral nature along the magnetic field axis, for the currents of charge and chirality, when there is finite baryon density or an imbalance between left and right chiralities. This "chiral magnetic spiral" is a gapless excitation transporting the currents of (i) charge (at finite chirality), and (ii) chirality (at finite baryon density) along the direction of the magnetic field. In both cases it also induces in the transverse directions oscillating currents of charge and chirality. In heavy ion collisions, the chiral magnetic spiral possibly provides contributions both to the out-of-plane and the in-plane dynamical charge fluctuations recently observed at RHIC.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Real-time dynamics of the Chiral Magnetic Effect

In quantum chromodynamics, a gauge field configuration with nonzero topological charge generates a difference between the number of left- and right-handed quarks. When a (electromagnetic) magnetic field is added to this configuration, an electromagnetic current is induced along the magnetic field; this is called the chiral magnetic effect. We compute this current in the presence of a color flux tube possessing topological charge, with a magnetic field applied perpendicular to it. We argue that this situation is realized at the early stage of relativistic heavy-ion collisions.

hep-ph↗