arXiv subjects

Jan Steinheimer

Publications and source records attributed to Jan Steinheimer.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

The time evolution of light nuclei cumulants and ratios with a first-order phase transition in the UrQMD transport model

The UrQMD model with a density dependent equation of state, including a first-order phase transition, is used to study the time dependence of baryon number and proton number susceptibilities up to third order in heavy ion reactions of $E_{\mathrm{lab}}=2-3 A$ GeV. A significant deviation from the Gaussian fluctuations of the baryon number fluctuation in coordinate space is observed. The proton number fluctuations are always suppressed as they constitute only a small fraction of the total baryon number during the dense phase of the collision. It is found that the only measurable, but small, signal would be an enhancement of the third order (or higher) proton cumulant in a finite rapidity window $Δy$ that is larger than one unit of rapidity. In addition, it is found that the coordinate fluctuations will lead to an enhancement of cluster production due to the correlations in coordinate space. However, this enhancement is small and mainly occurs during the dense part of the collision before the system actually freezes out.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Momentum dependent potentials from a parity doubling CMF model in UrQMD: Results on flow and particle production

The quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) part of the UrQMD model is extended to allow implementation of momentum dependent potentials from a parity doubling chiral mean field (CMF) model. Important aspects like energy conservation and effects on particle production and flow are discussed. It is shown, that this new implementation reproduces qualitatively and quantitatively available data over a wide range of beam energies and improves the description of observables without exception. In particular the description of hyperon and pion production at SIS18 energies is improved. From a comparison with HADES data one could conclude that the present parametrization of the CMF model leads to a slightly too weak momentum dependence. However, a more firm conclusion will require a systematic comparison with flow and multiplicity data over a range of beam energies and system sizes. Our work serves as an important step towards such future studies where the properties of dense QCD matter, through parameters of the CMF model, can be constraint using a comparison of the UrQMD model with high precision heavy ion data, finally also allowing direct comparisons with neutron star and neutron star merger observables.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Resonance suppression during the hadronic stage from the FAIR to the intermediate RHIC energy regime

The energy and centrality dependence of the kaon resonance ratio $(K^{*0}+\Bar{K}^{*0})/(K^+ + K^-)$ is explored in the RHIC-BES and CBM-FAIR energy regime. To this aim, the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) model is employed to simulate reconstructable $K^{*}$ resonances in Au+Au and p+p collisions from $\sqrt{s_{\text{NN}}}=3-39$ GeV. We obtain a good description of the resonance yields and mean transverse momenta over the whole investigated energy range. The decrease of the $K^*/K$ ratio, with increasing centrality is in line with the available experimental data. We also observe the experimenatlly measured increase in $\langle p_{\text{T}}\rangle$ with increasing centrality which is interpreted as a lower reconstruction probability of low-$p_{\text{T}}$ $K^*$ due to the $p_{\text{T}}$ dependent absorption of the decay daughter hadrons. We conclude that the observed suppression of reconstructable $K^{*}$ resonances provides a strong sign of an extended hadronic rescattering stage at all investigated energies. Its duration increases from peripheral to central reactions as expected. Following a method, suggested by the STAR experiment, the "duration" of the hadronic stage is extracted using the $K^*/K$ ratios at chemical and kinetic freeze-out. The resulting lifetimes are in good agreement with the experimental data, but much shorter than the actual lifetime of the hadronic phase in the transport simulation. This indicates that the experimental method to estimate the life time of the hadronic stage is too simplified.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Production of nuclei and hypernuclei in pion-induced reactions near threshold energies

The Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics model is employed to simulate $π^-+\mathrm{C}$ and $π^-+\mathrm{W}$ collisions at p$_\mathrm{lab}=1.7$ GeV motivated by the recent HADES results. By comparing the proton and $Λ$ transverse momentum spectra, it was observed that the data and transport model calculation show a good agreement, if cluster formation is included to obtain the free proton spectra. Predictions of light cluster ($d$, $t$, $^3$He, $^4$He, as well as ${}^{3}_Λ$H and $Ξ$N) multiplicities and spectra are made using a coalescence mechanism. The resulting multiplicities suggest that the pion beam experiment can produce a substantial amount of ${}^{3}_Λ$H, especially in $π^-+\mathrm{W}$ collisions due to the stopping of the $Λ$ inside the large tungsten nucleus. The findings are supplemented by a statistical multi-fragmentation analysis suggesting that even larger hyper-fragments are produced copiously. It is suggested that even double strange hypernuclei are in reach and might be studied in more detail using a slightly higher pion beam momentum.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2024

Possible explanation of the irregular energy dependence of the rapidity width of $ϕ$ mesons observed in Pb+Pb collisions

Experimental data from the NA49 collaboration show an unexpectedly steep rise of the rapidity width of the $ϕ$ meson as function of beam energy, which was suggested as possible interesting signal for novel physics. In this work we show that the Ultra-relativistic Quantum-Molecular-Dynamics (UrQMD) model is able to reproduce the shapes of the rapidity distributions of most measured hadrons and predicts a common linear increase of the width for all hadrons. Only when following the exact same analysis technique and experimental acceptance of the NA49 and NA61/SHINE collaborations, we find that the extracted value of the rapidity width of the $ϕ$ increases drastically for the highest beam energy. We conclude that the observed steep increase of the $ϕ$ rapidity width is a problem of limited detector acceptance and the simplified Gaussian fit approximation.

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arXiv2024

Effect of finite volume on thermodynamics of quark-hadron matter

The effects of a finite system volume on thermodynamic quantities, such as the pressure, energy density, specific heat, speed of sound, conserved charge susceptibilities and correlations, in hot and dense strongly interacting matter are studied within the parity-doublet Chiral Mean Field (CMF) model. Such an investigation is motivated by relativistic heavy-ion collisions, which create a blob of hot QCD matter of a finite volume, consisting of strongly interacting hadrons and potentially deconfined quarks and gluons. The effect of the finite volume of the system is incorporated by introducing a lower momentum cut-offs in the momentum integrals appearing in the model, the numerical value of the momentum cut-off being related to the de Broglie wavelength of the given particle species. It is found that some of these quantities show a significant volume dependence, in particular those sensitive to pion degrees of freedom, and the crossover transition is generally observed to become smoother in finite volume. These findings are relevant for the effective equation of state used in fluid dynamical simulations of heavy-ion collisions and efforts to extract the freeze out properties of heavy-ion collisions with susceptibilities involving electric charge and strangeness.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Spinodal enhancement of fluctuations in nucleus-nucleus collisions

Subensemble Acceptance Method (SAM) [1,2] is an essential link between measured event-by-event fluctuations and their grand canonical theoretical predictions such as lattice QCD. The method allows quantifying the global conservation law effects in fluctuations. In its basic formulation, SAM requires a sufficiently large system such as created in central nucleus-nucleus collisions and sufficient space-momentum correlations. Directly in the spinodal region of the First Order Phase Transition (FOPT) different approximations should be used that account for finite size effects. Thus, we present the generalization of SAM applicable in both the pure phases, metastable and unstable regions of the phase diagram [3]. Obtained analytic formulas indicate the enhancement of fluctuations due to crossing the spinodal region of FOPT and are tested using molecular dynamics simulations. A rather good agreement is observed. Using transport model calculations with interaction potential we show that the spinodal enhancement of fluctuations survives till the later stages of collision via the memory effect [4]. However, at low collision energies the space-momentum correlation is not strong enough for this signal to be transferred to second and third order cumulants measured in momentum subspace. This result agrees well with recent HADES data on proton number fluctuations at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.4$ GeV which are found to be consistent with the binomial momentum space acceptance [5].

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Enhanced Dilepton production near the color superconducting phase and the QCD critical point

The dilepton production yields in relativistic heavy ion collisions are investigated along isentropic trajectories in the quark (Wigner) phase within the two-flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. An enhancement of the ultra-low energy dilepton yield in the vicinity of the color superconducting (CSC) phase and the QCD critical point (QCD-CP) is found, compared to the free quark gas. Furthermore, we have found a nontrivial structure in the beam energy dependence of the ultra-low energy dilepton yield. A local maximum and minimum of the dilepton yield as a function of entropy per baryon emerge when the trajectories are close to both locations of the CSC phase transition line and the QCD-CP. Only the maximum appears in the scenario without the CSC phase but with the QCD-CP. On the other hand, when only the CSC phase is considered, the dilepton yield monotonically increases as the beam energy decreases. These distinctive patterns could potentially serve as signals of the CSC phase and QCD-CP. In addition, it is found that the dilepton production yield and the location of the minimum strongly depend on the value of diquark coupling, suggesting the possibility that the value of the diquark coupling may be extracted from experimental data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

QCD Equation of State of Dense Nuclear Matter from a Bayesian Analysis of Heavy-Ion Collision Data

Bayesian methods are used to constrain the density dependence of the QCD Equation of State (EoS) for dense nuclear matter using the data of mean transverse kinetic energy and elliptic flow of protons from heavy ion collisions (HIC), in the beam energy range $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=2-10 GeV$. The analysis yields tight constraints on the density dependent EoS up to 4 times the nuclear saturation density. The extracted EoS yields good agreement with other observables measured in HIC experiments and constraints from astrophysical observations both of which were not used in the inference. The sensitivity of inference to the choice of observables is also discussed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Gravitational Waves from a Core g-Mode in Supernovae as Probes of the High-Density Equation of State

Using relativistic supernova simulations of massive progenitor stars with a quark-hadron equation of state (EoS) and a purely hadronic EoS, we identify a distinctive feature in the gravitational-wave signal that originates from a buoyancy-driven mode (g-mode) below the proto-neutron star convection zone. The mode frequency lies in the range $200\lesssim f\lesssim 800\,\text{Hz}$ and decreases with time. As the mode lives in the core of the proto-neutron star, its frequency and power are highly sensitive to the EoS, in particular the sound speed around twice saturation density.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

Model dependence of the number of participant nucleons and observable consequences in heavy-ion collisions

The centrality determination and the estimated fluctuations of number of participant nucleons $N_{part}$ in Au-Au collisions at 1.23 $A$GeV beam kinetic energy suffers from severe model dependencies. Comparing the Glauber Monte Carlo (MC) and UrQMD transport models, it is shown that $N_{part}$ is a strongly model dependant quantity. In addition, for any given centrality class, Glauber MC and UrQMD predicts drastically different $N_{part}$ distributions. The impact parameter $b$ and the number of charged particles $N_{ch}$ on the other hand are much more correlated and give an almost model independent centrality estimator. It is suggested that the total baryon number balance, from integrated rapidity distributions, can be used instead of $N_{part}$ in experiments. Preliminary HADES data show significant differences to both, UrQMD simulations and STAR data in this respect.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Investigating the cluster production mechanism with isospin triggering: Thermal models versus coalescence models

Isospin triggering allows to distinguish coalescence from thermal production of light clusters in heavy ion collisions. Triggering on $Y(π^-) - Y(π^+)$ allows to select very neutron or proton rich final states. The deuteron (cluster) production with coalescence ($d \propto n \cdot p$) leads then to an inverse parabolic dependence of the deuteron yield on $ΔY_π$. In contrast, in a thermal model, cluster production is independent on $ΔY_π$. The observation of a maximum deuteron (cluster) yield as function of $ΔY_π$ provides confirmation of the coalescence mechanism.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2023

Probing neutron-star matter in the lab: similarities and differences between binary mergers and heavy-ion collisions

Binary neutron-star mergers and heavy-ion collisions are related through the properties of the hot and dense nuclear matter formed during these extreme events. In particular, low-energy heavy-ion collisions offer exciting prospects to recreate such {extreme} conditions in the laboratory. However, it remains unexplored to what degree those collisions can actually reproduce hot and dense matter formed in binary neutron star mergers. As a way to understand similarities and differences between these systems, we {discuss their geometry and }perform a direct numerical comparison of the thermodynamic conditions probed in both collisions. To enable a direct comparison, we employ a finite-temperature equation of state able to describe the entire high-energy phase diagram of Quantum Chromodynamics. Putting side by side the evolution of both systems, we find that laboratory heavy-ion collisions at the energy range of $E_{\mathrm{lab}}=0.4 - 0.6\ A$ MeV probe (thermodynamic) states of matter that are very similar to those created in binary neutron-star mergers. These results can inform future low-energy heavy-ion collisions probing this regime.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2023

Decoding the flow evolution in Au+Au reactions at $1.23 A$ GeV using hadron flow correlations and dileptons

We investigate the development of the directed, $v_1$, and elliptic flow, $v_2$, in heavy ion collisions in mid-central Au+Au reactions at $E_\mathrm{lab}=1.23 A$ GeV. We demonstrate that the elliptic flow of hot and dense matter is initially positive ($v_2>0$) due to the early pressure gradient. This positive $v_2$ transfers its momentum to the spectators, which leads to the creation of the directed flow $v_1$. In turn, the spectator shadowing of the in-plane expansion leads to a preferred decoupling of hadrons in the out-of-plane direction and results in a negative $v_2$ for the observable final state hadrons. We propose a measurement of $v_1-v_2$ flow correlations and of the elliptic flow of dileptons as methods to pin down this evolution pattern. The elliptic flow of the dileptons allows then to determine the early-state EoS more precisely, because it avoids the strong modifications of the momentum distribution due to shadowing seen in the protons. This opens the unique opportunity for the HADES and CBM collaborations to measure the Equation-of-State directly at 2-3 times nuclear saturation density.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2023

Probing system size dependence at high baryon density by systematic comparison of Ag+Ag and Au+Au reactions at 1.23$A$ GeV

We present UrQMD predictions for the comparison of the recently measured Ag+Ag and Au+Au runs at a beam energy of $E_\mathrm{lab}$ = 1.23~$A$GeV explored by the HADES experiment. To this aim, different centrality definitions are investigated: We suggest that in the case of particle production, both systems should be compared at the same number of participating nucleons, while for a comparison of the (elliptic) flow, a selection on the initial state eccentricity - as in high energy reaction - is better suited. Generally, we find good agreement between both system, if these centrality criteria are used. Specifically, the deuteron yields per participant and the pion to proton ratios are shown to scale with $A_\mathrm{part}$ except for very central Ag+Ag reactions due to stronger stopping in such reactions. The elliptic flow in both systems follows inital state eccentricity scaling, albeit with the opposite sign as compared to high energies, suggesting a strong relation between final flows and the initial state also at the low energies explored here. The observation of this scaling might then allow to obtain further information on the expansion properties (and the EoS) of matter at high baryon densities.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2023

Energy dependence of light hypernuclei production in heavy-ion collisions from a coalescence and statistical-thermal model perspective

A comparison of light hypernuclei production, from UrQMD+coalescence and the thermal model, in heavy ion collisions over a wide range of beam energies and system sizes is presented. We find that both approaches provide generally similar results, with differences in specific details. Especially the ratios of hypertriton to $Λ$ are affected by both the source radius $Δr$ of the coalescence procedure as well as canonical effects. On the other hand, the double ratio $S_3$ is almost independent of canonical effects, which is in contrast to coalescence. Thus, both the beam energy dependence and centrality dependence of $S_3$ can be used to constrain the hypertriton source radius. To do so the currently available data is not yet sufficient. Elliptic flow is shown to be unaffected by the source size of the nuclei and an almost perfect mass scaling of the elliptic flow is observed. Our predictions further suggest that the existence of the H-dibaryon ($ΛΛ$) seems ruled out by ALICE data.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2023

Harmonic flow correlations in Au+Au reactions at 1.23 AGeV: A new testing ground for the Equation-of-State and expansion geometry

Correlations between the harmonic flow coefficients $v_1$, $v_2$, $v_3$ and $v_4$ of nucleons in semi-peripheral Au+Au collisions at a beam energy of 1.23~AGeV are investigated within the hadronic transport approach Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD). In contrast to ultra-relativistic collision energies (where the flow coefficients are evaluated with respect to the respective event plane), we predict strong correlations between the flow harmonics with respect to the reaction plane. Based on an event-by-event selection of the midrapidity final state elliptic flow of protons we show that as a function of rapidity, I) the sign of the triangular flow changes, II) that the shape of $v_4$ changes from convex to concave, and III) that $v_3\propto v_1v_2$ and $v_4\propto v_2^2$ for all different event classes, indicating strong correlations between all investigated harmonic flow coefficients.

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arXiv2022

The high-density equation of state in heavy-ion collisions: Constraints from proton flow

A set of different equations of state is implemented in the molecular dynamics part of a non-equilibrium transport simulation (UrQMD) of heavy-ion collisions. It is shown how different flow observables are affected by the density dependence of the equation of state. In particular, the effects of a phase transition at high density are explored, including an expected reduction in mean $m_T$. We also show that an increase in $v_2$ is characteristic for a strong softening of the equation of state. The phase transitions with a low coexistence density, $n_{\mathrm{CE}}<4 n_0$, show a distinct minimum in the slope of the directed flow as a function of the beam energy, which would be a clear experimental signal. By comparing our results with experimental data, we can exclude any strong phase transition at densities below $4n_0$.

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