arXiv subjects

Ismail Zahed

Publications and source records attributed to Ismail Zahed.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

P-Odd Pion Azimuthal Charge Correlations in Heavy Ion Collisions

We argue that the large instanton induced Pauli form factor in polarized proton-proton scattering may cause, through topological fluctuations, substantial charge-dependent azimuthal correlations for pi^+/pi^- production in peripheral heavy ion collisions both at RHIC and LHC, thanks to the large induced magnetic field. Our results compare favorably to the measured pion azimuthal correlations by the STAR and ALICE collaborations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Stringy Pomeron: Entropy and Shear Viscosity

We model the soft pomeron contribution to dipole-dipole scattering as a closed string exchange in AdS5 with a wall. The exchange of closed and long strings is characterized by an apparent Unruh temperature and entropy that are caused by the rapidity interval chi of the collision. We show that the primordial transverse shear viscosity to transverse entropy density ratio is eta-perp/s-perp=(pi k/chi)^2/(8 pi) for scattering dipoles of N-ality k, vanishing at large chi.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

The Nucleon as a Holographic Cheshire Cat

The Cheshire cat principle emerges naturally from the holographic approach of the nucleon in terms of a bulk instanton. The cat hides in the holographic direction. I briefly review the one-nucleon problem in the holographic limit.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Electromagnetic Radiation in Hot QCD Matter: Rates, Electric Conductivity, Flavor Susceptibility and Diffusion

We discuss the general features of the electromagnetic radiation from a thermal hadronic gas as constrained by chiral symmetry. The medium effects on the electromagnetic spectral functions and the partial restoration of chiral symmetry are quantified in terms of the pion densities. The results are compared with the electromagnetic radiation from a strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma in terms of the leading gluon condensate operators. We use the spectral functions as constrained by the emission rates to estimate the electric conductivity, the light flavor susceptibility and diffusion constant across the transition from the correlated hadronic gas to a strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

New Regimes of Stringy (Holographic) Pomeron and High Multiplicity pp and pA Collisions

Holographic AdS/QCD models of the Pomeron unite a string-based description of hadronic reactions of the pre-QCD era with the perturbative BFKL approach. The specific version we will use due to Stoffers and Zahed, is based on a semiclassical quantization of a "tube" (closed string exchange or open string virtual pair production) in its Euclidean formulation using the scalar Polyakov action. This model has a number of phenomenologically successful results. The periodicity of a coordinate around the tube allows the introduction of a Matsubara time and therefore an effective temperature Teff on the string. We observe that at the LHC energies and for sufficiently small impact parameter, Teff approaches and even exceeds the Hagedorn temperature of the QCD strings. Based on studies of the stringy thermodynamics of pure gauge theories we suggest that there should exist two new regimes of the Pomeron: the "near-critical" and the "post-critical" ones. In the former one, string excitations create a high entropy "string ball", with high energy and entropy but small pressure/free energy. If heavy enough this ball becomes a (dual) black hole (BH). As the intrinsic temperature of the string exceeds the Hagedorn temperature, the ball becomes a post-critical explosive "QGP ball". The hydrodynamical explosion resulting from this scenario was predicted by us to have radial flow exceeding that ever seen even in heavy ion collisions, which was recently confirmed by CMS and ALICE at LHC. We also discuss the elastic scattering profile, finding some hints for new phases in it, as well as two-particle correlations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

High Multiplicity pp and pA Collisions: Hydrodynamics at its Edge

With growing multiplicity, the pp and pA collisions enter the domain where the macroscopic description (thermodynamics and hydrodynamics) becomes applicable. We discuss this situation, first with simplified thought experiments, then with some idealized representative cases, and finally address the real data. For clarity, we don't do it numerically but analytically, using the Gubser solution. We found that the radial flow is expected to increase from central AA to central pA, while the elliptic flow decreases, with higher harmonics being comparable. In the second part of the paper we approach the problem from the opposite side, using a string-based Pomeron model. We extensively study the magnitude and distribution of the viscous corrections, in Navier-Stokes and Israel-Stuart approximations, ending with higher gradient re-summation proposed by Lublinsky and Shuryak. We found those corrections growing, from AA to pA to pp, but remaining at the manageable size even in the last case.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Chiral and Gravitational Anomalies on Fermi Surfaces

A Fermi surface threaded by a Berry phase can be described by the Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) term. After gauging, it produces a five-dimensional Chern-Simons term in the action. We show how this Chern-Simons term captures the essence of the Abelian, non-Abelian, and mixed gravitational anomalies in describing both in- and off-equilibrium phenomena. In particular we derive a novel contribution to the Chiral Vortical Effect that arises when a temperature gradient is present. We also discuss the issue of universality of the anomalous currents.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Chiral Disorder and Random Matrix Theory with Magnetism

We revisit the concept of chiral disorder in QCD in the presence of a QED magnetic field |eH|. Weak magnetism corresponds to |eH| < 1/rho^2 with rho\approx (1/3) fm the vacuum instanton size, while strong magnetism the reverse. Asymptotics (ultra-strong magnetism) is in the realm of perturbative QCD. We analyze weak magnetism using the concept of the quark return probability in the diffusive regime of chiral disorder. The result is in agreement with expectations from chiral perturbation theory. We analyze strong and ultra-strong magnetism in the ergodic regime using random matrix theory including the effects of finite temperature. The strong magnetism results are in agreement with the currently reported lattice data in the presence of a small shift of the Polyakov line. The ultra-strong magnetism results are consistent with expectations from perturbative QCD. We suggest a chiral random matrix effective action with matter and magnetism to analyze the QCD phase diagram near the critical points under the influence of magnetism.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Holographic Pomeron and Entropy

In dipole-dipole scattering at large rapidity χ={\rm ln}(s/s_0), the induced instanton on the string worldsheet carries entropy S_k=2(α_{Pk}-1)χwith α_{Pk}-1 the pomeron intercept for a dipole source of N-ality k. This stringy entropy is neither coherent nor thermal. We argue that it is released promptly over a time t_R\approx (b / χ)^3 / (4 α') with α'/2 the pomeron slope and b the impact parameter. This stringy entropy may explain the 3/2 jump in the total charged multiplicities at about 10 participants reported over a wide range of collider energies by PHOBOS. We predict the charged multiplicities in pp, pA and AA collisions at LHC.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2012

Holographic Jets in an Expanding Plasma

We use the holographic principle to study quark jets with trailing strings in an expanding plasma that asymptotes Bjorken hydrodynamics. We make use of the fact that the trailing string is the locus of the light delay in bulk to obtain the explicit form for quark jets in the expanding plasma. From the trailing string solution we calculate the drag coefficient of a heavy quark in the strongly coupled expanding plasma. The energy scaling of the maximum penetration length of an ultrarelativistic light quark jet using light rays in bulk is estimated.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

Diffractive and deeply virtual Compton scattering in holographic QCD

We further analyze the holographic dipole-dipole scattering amplitude developed in arXiv:1202.0831, 1205.3223. Gribov diffusion at strong coupling yields the scattering amplitude in a confining background. We compare the holographic result for the differential cross section to proton-proton and deeply virtual Compton scattering data.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2012

Single Spin Asymmetry through QCD Instantons

We revisit the effects of QCD instantons in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS). We show that large single spin asymmetry (SSA) effects can be induced in longitudinally and transversely polarized proton targets. The results are in agreement with most of the reported data for pion and kaon production. The same effects are found to be important in polarized proton on proton scattering for both charged and chargeless pion productions. The results agree with the reported data in a wide range of \sqrt{s} = 19.4-200 GeV. We predict the SSA for π^\pm production in p_\uparrow p in the collider range of \sqrt{s} = 62.4-500 GeV. The backward π^{\pm} and π^0 productions for the SSA in p_\uparrow p collisions are predicted to coincide at large \sqrt{s}.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Anomalous Chiral Fermi Surface

We provide a geometrical argument for the emergence of a Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) term for a Fermi surface threaded by a Berry curvature. In the presence of external fields, the gauged WZW term yields a chiral (triangle) anomaly for the fermionic current at the edge of the Fermi surface. Fermion number is conserved though since the Berry curvatures occur always in pairs with opposite (monopole) charge. The anomalous vector and axial currents for a a fermionic fluid at low temperature threaded by pairs of Berry curvatures are discussed. The leading temperature correction to the chiral vortical effect in a slowly rotating Fermi surface threaded by a Berry curvature maybe tied to the gravitational anomaly.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

Holographic Pomeron: Saturation and DIS

We briefly review the approach to dipole-dipole scattering in holographic QCD developed in ARXIV:1202.0831. The Pomeron is modeled by exchanging closed strings between the dipoles and yields Regge behavior for the elastic amplitude. We calculate curvature corrections to this amplitude in both a conformal and confining background, identifying the holographic direction with the virtuality of the dipoles. The it wee-dipole density is related to the string tachyon diffusion in both virtuality and the transverse directions. We give an explicit derivation of the dipole saturation momentum both in the conformal and confining metric. Our holographic result for the dipole-dipole cross section and the it wee-dipole density in the conformal limit are shown to be identical in form to the BFKL pomeron result when the non-critical string transverse dimension is $D_\perp=3$. The total dipole-dipole cross section is compared to DIS data from HERA.

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↗

arXiv2011

Self-force and synchrotron radiation in odd space-time dimensions

Classical electrodynamics in flat 3+1 space-time has a very special retarded propagator delta(x^2) localized on the light cone, so that a particle does not interact with its past field. However, this is an exception, and in flat odd-dimensional space-times as well as generic curved spaces this is not so. In this work we show that the so called self-force is not only non-zero, but it matches (in 2+1 dimensions) the radiation reaction force derived from the radiation intensity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

gamma^* gamma^* -> pi^0 Form Factor from AdS/QCD

The recently measured $γγ^*\rightarrow π^0$ anomalous form factor is analyzed using the $D4/D8\bar{D8}$ holographic approach to QCD. The half-on-shell transition form factor is vector meson dominated and is shown to exactly tie to the pion form factor. The holographic result compares well with the data for the lowest vector resonance.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Improved AdS/QCD Model with Matter

We study an improved AdS/QCD model at finite temperature and chemical potential. An Ansatz for the beta-function for the boundary theory allows for the derivation of a charged dilatonic black hole in bulk. The solution is asymptotically RN-AdS in the UV and AdS2 * R3 in the IR. We discuss the thermodynamical aspects of the solution. The fermionic susceptibilities are shown to deviate from the free fermionic limits at asymptotic temperatures despite the asymptotically free nature of the gauge coupling at the boundary. The Polyakov line, the temporal and spatial string tensions dependence on both temperature and chemical potential are also discussed.

hep-th↗