arXiv subjects

Hendrik van Hees

Publications and source records attributed to Hendrik van Hees.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Correlated D-meson decays competing against thermal QGP dilepton radiation

The QGP that might be created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions is expected to radiate thermal dilepton radiation. However, this thermal dilepton radiation interferes with dileptons originating from hadron decays. In the invariant mass region between the $ϕ$ and $J/Ψ$ peak ($1\,$GeV$\lesssim M_{\ell^+ \ell^-} \lesssim 3 \,$GeV) the most substantial background of hadron decays originates from correlated D$\bar{\mathrm{D}}$-meson decays. We evaluate this background using a Langevin simulation for charm quarks. As background medium we utilize the well-tested UrQMD-hybrid model. The required drag and diffusion coefficients are taken from a resonance approach. The decoupling of the charm quarks from the hot medium is performed at a temperature of $130\,$MeV and as hadronization mechanism a coalescence approach is chosen. This model for charm quark interactions with the medium has already been successfully applied to the study of the medium modification and the elliptic flow at FAIR, RHIC and LHC energies. In this proceeding we present our results for the dilepton radiation from correlated D$\bar{\mathrm{D}}$ decays at RHIC energy in comparison to PHENIX measurements in the invariant mass range between 1 and 3 GeV using different interaction scenarios. These results can be utilized to estimate the thermal QGP radiation.

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arXiv2013

Dileptons from correlated D- and $\bar{\text{D}}$-meson decays in the invariant mass range of the QGP thermal radiation using the UrQMD hybrid model

Relativistic heavy-ion collisions produce a hot and dense thermalized medium, that is expected to emit thermal radiation in form of dileptons. These dileptons are not affected by the strong force and are therefore a clean probe for the possible creation of a Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP). However, electroweak decays of open-charm mesons are expected to induce a substantial background in the invariant mass region between the $ϕ$ and $J/Ψ$ peak ($1\,\text{GeV} \lesssim M_{\ell^+ \ell^-} \lesssim 3 \,\text{GeV}$) of the thermal QGP radiation. To evaluate this background radiation we apply a Langevin approach for the transport of charm quarks in the UrQMD (hydrodynamics + Boltzmann) hybrid model. Due to the inclusion of event-by-event fluctuations and a full (3+1)-dimensional hydrodynamic evolution, the UrQMD hybrid approach provides a more realistic model for the evolution of the matter produced in heavy ion collisions as compared to simple homogeneous fireball expansions usually employed before. As drag and diffusion coefficients we use a resonance approach for elastic heavy-quark scattering and assume a decoupling temperature of the charm quarks from the hot medium of $130\,\text{MeV}$. For the hadronization of the charm quarks we employ a coalescence approach at the decoupling temperature from the medium. In this letter we present our calculations of the D-meson correlations and the invariant mass spectra of the dilepton decays in heavy-ion collisions at FAIR, RHIC, and LHC energies using different interaction scenarios.

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arXiv2013

Relativistic Langevin Dynamics in Expanding Media

We study the consequences of different realizations of diffusion processes in relativistic Langevin simulations. We elaborate on the Ito-Stratonovich dilemma by showing how microscopically calculated transport coefficients as obtained from a Boltzmann/Fokker-Planck equation can be implemented to lead to an unambiguous realization of the Langevin process. Pertinent examples within the pre-point (Ito) and post-point (Hänggi-Klimontovich) Langevin prescriptions are worked out explicitly. Deviations from this implementation are shown to generate variants of the Boltzmann distribution as the stationary (equilibrium) solutions. Finally, we explicitly verify how the Lorentz invariance of the Langevin process is maintained in the presence of an expanding medium, including the case of an "elliptic flow" transmitted to a Brownian test particle. This is particularly relevant for using heavy-flavor diffusion as a quantitative tool to diagnose transport properties of QCD matter as created in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions.

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arXiv2013

Elliptic flow and nuclear modification factors of D-mesons at FAIR in a Hybrid-Langevin approach

The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at the Facility for Anti-proton and Ion Research (FAIR) will provide new possibilities for charm-quark ($D$-meson) observables in heavy-ion collisions at low collision energies and high baryon densities. To predict the collective flow and nuclear modification factors of charm quarks in this environment, we apply a Langevin approach for the transport of charm quarks in the UrQMD (hydrodynamics + Boltzmann) hybrid model. Due to the inclusion of event-by-event fluctuations and a full (3+1) dimensional hydrodynamical evolution, the UrQMD hybrid approach provides a realistic evolution of the matter produced in heavy-ion collisions. As drag and diffusion coefficients we use a resonance approach for elastic heavy-quark scattering and assume a decoupling temperature of the charm quarks from the hot medium of $130\, \MeV$. Hadronization of the charm quarks to $D$-mesons by coalescence is included. Since the initial charm-quark distribution at FAIR is unknown, we utilize two different initial charm-quark distributions in our approach to estimate the uncertainty of these predictions. We present calculations of the nuclear modification factor, $R_{AA}$, as well as for the elliptic flow, $v_2$, in Pb+Pb collisions at $E_{lab}=25\,\text{AGeV}$. The different medium modifications of $D$-mesons and $\bar{D}$-mesons at high baryon-chemical potential are explored by modified drag- and diffusion-coefficients using the corresponding fugacity factor. Here we find a considerably larger medium modification for $\bar{\mathrm{D}}$- than for $D$-mesons.

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arXiv2013

Non-equilibrium photon production arising from the chiral mass shift

We investigate the photon emission arising from the shift of the quark/antiquark masses during the chiral phase transition in the early stage of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. As this mass shift leads to spontaneous creation of quark-antiquark pairs and thus contributes to the formation of the quark-gluon plasma, our investigations are relevant in the context of finite-lifetime effects on the photon emission from the latter. Earlier investigations on this topic by Boyanovsky et al. were plagued by a UV divergent contribution from the vacuum polarization and the non-integrability of the remaining contributions in the ultraviolet domain. In contrast to these investigations, we do not consider the photon number-density at finite times but for free asymptotic states obtained by an adiabatic switching of the electromagnetic interaction according to the Gell-Mann and Low theorem. This approach eliminates possible unphysical contributions from the vacuum polarization and renders the resulting photon spectra integrable in the ultraviolet domain. It is emphasized that the consideration of free asymptotic states is indeed crucial to obtain such physically reasonable results.

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arXiv2012

Heavy quark transport at RHIC and LHC

We calculate the heavy quark evolution in heavy ion collisions and show results for the elliptic flow $v_2$ as well as the nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$ at RHIC and LHC energies. For the calculation we implement a Langevin approach for the transport of heavy quarks in the UrQMD (hydrodynamics + Boltzmann) hybrid model. As drag and diffusion coefficients we use a Resonance approach for elastic heavy-quark scattering and assume a decoupling temperature of the charm quarks from the hot medium of $130\,\text{MeV}$. At RHIC energies we use a coalescence approach at the decoupling temperature for the hadronization of the heavy quarks to D-mesons and B-mesons and a sub-following decay to heavy flavor electrons using PYTHIA. At LHC we use an additional fragmentation mechanism to account for the higher transverse momenta reached at higher collision energies.

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arXiv2012

Heavy quark transport in heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC within the UrQMD transport model

We have implemented a Langevin approach for the transport of heavy quarks in the UrQMD hybrid model. The UrQMD hybrid approach provides a realistic description of the background medium for the evolution of relativistic heavy ion collisions. We have used two different sets of drag and diffusion coefficients, one based on a $T$-Matrix approach and one based on a resonance model for the elastic scattering of heavy quarks within the medium. In case of the resonance model we have investigated the effects of different decoupling temperatures of the heavy quarks from the medium, ranging between $130\,\text{MeV}$ and $180\,\text{MeV}$. We present calculations of the nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$, as well as of the elliptic flow $v_2$ in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200\,\text{GeV}$ and Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76\,\text{TeV}$. To make our results comparable to experimental data at RHIC and LHC we have implemented a Peterson fragmentation and a quark coalescence approach followed by the semileptonic decay of the D- and B-mesons to electrons. We find that our results strongly depend on the decoupling temperature and the hadronization mechanism. At a decoupling temperature of $130\,\text{MeV}$ we reach a good agreement with the measurements at both, RHIC and LHC energies, simultaneously for the elliptic flow $v_2$ and the nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$.

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arXiv2012

Dilepton production in proton-induced reactions at SIS energies with the GiBUU transport model

We present dilepton spectra from p+p, d+p and p+Nb reactions at SIS energies, which were simulated with the GiBUU transport model in a resonance model approach. These spectra are compared to the data published by the HADES and DLS collaborations. It is shown that the $ρ$ spectral function includes non-trivial effects already in elementary reactions, due to production via baryon resonances, which can yield large contributions to the dilepton spectrum. Dilepton spectra from nuclear reactions in the energy range of the HADES experiment are thus found to be sensitive also to properties of nucleon resonances in the nuclear medium.

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arXiv2012

Off-equilibrium photon production during the chiral phase transition

In the early stage of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions chiral symmetry is restored temporarily. During this so-called chiral phase transition, the quark masses change from their constituent to their bare values. This mass shift leads to the spontaneous non-perturbative creation of quark-antiquark pairs, which effectively contributes to the formation of the quark-gluon plasma. We investigate the photon production induced by this creation process. We provide an approach that eliminates possible unphysical contributions from the vacuum polarization and renders the resulting photon spectra integrable inthe ultraviolet domain. The off-equilibrium photon numbers are of quadratic order in the perturbative coupling constants while a thermal production is only of quartic order. Quantitatively, we find, however, that for the most physical mass-shift scenarios and for photon momenta larger than 1 GeV the off-equilibrium processes contribute less photons than the thermal processes.

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arXiv2012

Charm quark transport in Pb+Pb reactions at sqrt{s}_NN=2.76 TeV from a (3+1) dimensional hybrid approach

We implement a Langevin approach for the transport of charm quarks in the UrQMD (hydrodynamics + Boltzmann) hybrid model. Due to the inclusion of event-by-event fluctuations and a full (3+1) dimensional hydrodynamic evolution, this approach provides a more realistic model for the evolution of the matter produced in heavy ion collisions as compared to simple homogeneous fireball expansions usually employed. As drag and diffusion coefficients we use a resonance approach for elastic heavy-quark scattering and assume a decoupling temperature of the charm quarks from the hot medium of 130 MeV. A coalescence approach at the decoupling temperature for the hadronization of the charm quarks to D-mesons is also included. We present calculations of the nuclear modification factor R_AA as well as the elliptic flow v_2 in Pb+Pb collisions at sqrt s_NN=2.76 TeV. The comparison to ALICE measurements shows a very good agreement with our calculations.

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arXiv2011

Description of fully differential Drell-Yan pair production

We investigate Drell-Yan pair production in a QCD inspired model, which takes into account all relevant hard processes up to $O(α_s)$. To address the known shortfalls of such a fixed order calculation we introduce phenomenological parton distributions for initial transverse momentum and quark mass, and devise a subtraction scheme to avoid double-counting when utilizing the standard longitudinal parton distribution functions. We show that we can reproduce Drell-Yan transverse momentum and invariant mass spectra from different proton-proton, proton-nucleus and antiproton-nucleus experiments and at different energies without the need for a $K$ factor. Fixing our parameters at these spectra, we make predictions for Drell-Yan transverse momentum spectra at low hadronic energies, which will be measured for example at $\bar{\text{P}}$ANDA in antiproton-proton collisions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

The influence of bulk evolution models on heavy-quark phenomenology

We study the impact of different Quark-Gluon Plasma expansion scenarios in heavy-ion collisions on spectra and elliptic flow of heavy quarks. For identical heavy-quark transport coefficients relativistic Langevin simulations with different expansion scenarios can lead to appreciable variations in the calculated suppression and elliptic flow of the heavy-quark spectra, by up to a factor of two. A cross comparison with two sets of transport coefficients supports these findings, illustrating the importance of realistic expansion models for quantitative evaluations of heavy-quark observables in heavy-ion collisions. It also turns out that differences in freeze-out prescriptions and Langevin realizations play a significant role in these variations. Light-quark observables are essential in reducing the uncertainties associated with the bulk-matter evolution, even though uncertainties due to the freeze-out prescription persist.

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arXiv2009

Heavy Quarks in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

Heavy-flavor particles are believed to provide valuable probes of the medium produced in ultrarelativistic collisions of heavy nuclei. In this article we review recent progress in our understanding of the interactions of charm and bottom quarks in the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). For individual heavy quarks, we focus on elastic interactions for which the large quark mass enables a Brownian motion treatment. This opens a unique access to thermalization mechanisms for heavy quarks at low momentum, and thus to their transport coefficients in the quark-gluon fluid. Different approaches to evaluate heavy-quark diffusion are discussed and compared, including perturbative QCD, effective potential models utilizing input from lattice QCD and string-theoretic estimates in conformal field theories. Applications to heavy-quark observables in heavy-ion collisions are realized via relativistic Langevin simulations, where we illustrate the important role of a realistic medium evolution to quantitatively extract the heavy-quark diffusion constant. In the heavy quarkonium sector, we briefly review the current status in potential-model based interpretations of correlation functions computed in lattice QCD, followed by an evaluation of quarkonium dissociation reactions in the QGP. The discussion of the phenomenology in heavy-ion reactions focuses on thermal model frameworks paralleling the open heavy-flavor sector. We also emphasize connections to the heavy-quark diffusion problem in both potential models and quarkonium regeneration processes.

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arXiv2008

Dilepton Radiation at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron

A quantitative evaluation of dilepton sources in heavy-ion reactions is performed taking into account both thermal and non-thermal production mechanisms. The hadronic thermal emission rate is based on an electromagnetic current-correlation function with a low-mass region (LMR, M \lsim 1 GeV) dominated by vector mesons (ρ, ω, ϕ) and an intermediate-mass region (IMR, 1 GeV \le M \le 3 GeV) characterized by (the onset of) a multi-meson continuum. A convolution of the emission rates over a thermal fireball expansion results in good agreement with experiment in the low-mass spectra, confirming the predicted broadening of the ρmeson in hadronic matter in connection with the prevalence of baryon-induced medium effects. The absolute magnitude of the LMR excess is mostly controlled by the fireball lifetime, which in turn leads to a consistent explanation of the dilepton excess in the IMR in terms of thermal radiation. The analysis of experimental transverse-momentum (q_T) spectra reveals discrepancies with thermal emission for q_T \gsim 1 GeV in noncentral In-In collisions, which we address by extending our calculations by: (i) a refined treatment of ρdecays at thermal freezeout, (ii) primordially produced ρ's subject to energy-loss, (iii) Drell-Yan annihilation, and (iv) thermal radiation from t-channel meson exchange processes. We investigate the sensitivity of dilepton spectra to the critical temperature and hadro-chemical freezeout of the fireball. The ρbroadening in the LMR turns out to be robust, while in the IMR Quark-Gluon Plasma radiation is moderate unless the critical temperature is rather low.

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arXiv2007

Interpretation of Recent SPS Dilepton Data

We summarize our current theoretical understanding of in-medium properties of the electromagnetic current correlator in view of recent dimuon data from the NA60 experiment in In(158 AGeV)-In collisions at the CERN-SPS. We discuss the sensitivity of the results to space-time evolution models for the hot and dense partonic and hadronic medium created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and the contributions from different sources to the dilepton-excess spectra.

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arXiv2007

Novel heavy flavor suppression mechanisms in the QGP

We revisit the question of the measured, unexpectedly large, heavy flavor suppression, $R_{AA}(p_T) \ll 1$, in nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and compare two new theoretical approaches to the $D$- and $B$-meson quenching. In the first model, radiative energy loss, collisional energy loss and heavy quark-resonance interactions are combined to evaluate the drag and diffusion coefficients in the quark-gluon plasma and the mixed phase. These are applied in a relativistic Fokker-Planck equation to simulate the heavy $c$- and $b$-quark suppression rate and elliptic flow $v_2(p_T)$. In the second model, the fragmentation probability for heavy quarks and the medium-induced decay probability for heavy hadrons are derived. These are implemented in a set of coupled rate equations that describe the attenuation of the observable spectra from the collisional dissociation of heavy mesons in the QGP. An improved description of the non-photonic electron $R_{AA}(p_T)$ at RHIC can be obtained. In contrast to previous results, the latter approach predicts suppression of $B$-mesons comparable to that of $D$-mesons at transverse momenta as low as $p_T \sim 10$ GeV.

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arXiv2006

Melting rho Meson and Thermal Dileptons

We give a brief survey of theoretical evaluations of light vector mesons in hadronic matter, focusing on results from hadronic many-body theory. We emphasize the importance of imposing model constraints in obtaining reliable results for the in-medium spectral densities. The latter are subsequently applied to the calculation of dilepton spectra in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, with comparisons to recent NA60 data at the CERN-SPS. We discuss aspects of space-time evolution models and the decomposition of the excess spectra into different emission sources.

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arXiv2006

Comprehensive Interpretation of Thermal Dileptons at the SPS

Employing thermal dilepton rates based on medium-modified electromagnetic correlation functions we show that recent dimuon spectra of the NA60 collaboration in central In-In collisions at the CERN-SPS can be understood in terms of radiation from a hot and dense hadronic medium. Earlier calculated ρ-meson spectral functions, as following from hadronic many-body theory, provide an accurate description of the data up to dimuon invariant masses of about M\simeq 0.9 GeV, with good sensitivity to details of the predicted ρ-meson line shape. This, in particular, identifies baryon-induced effects as the prevalent ones. We show that a reliable description of the ρcontribution opens the possibility to study further medium effects: at higher masses (M \simeq 0.9-1.5 GeV) 4-pion type annihilation is required to account for the experimentally observed excess indicating precursor effects of chiral symmetry restoration (``chiral mixing''), while remaining structures in the ωand ϕregion are suggestive for modifications in their line shapes as well.

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