arXiv subjects

L. A. Hernández

Publications and source records attributed to L. A. Hernández.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Mechanical design concept version 2.0 for the miniBeBe subsystem of the Multi-Purpose Detector at the Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research

We present the design of the mechanical structure of the mini Beam-Beam detector, a subsystem of the Multi-Purpose Detector, soon to enter into operation at the Nuclotron based Ion Collider fAcility of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The miniBeBe detector was designed and is currently being developed by the Mexican team of the NICA Collaboration to contribute to the level-zero trigger of the Time of Flight Detector. The mechanical structure meets the requirements of minimizing the material budget and be free of ferromagnetic materials, without compromising its robustness. The design also allows for easy module replacement for maintenance and overall removal at the end of the first stage of the experiment, without affecting the rest of the subsystems, to leave room for the installation of the Inner Tracking System. In addition, a Finite Element Method analysis of the mechanical components under load was performed. Based on this analysis, it was determined that the design meets the space constraints within the Multi-Purpose Detector, as well as a deformation of less than 1 mm with overall stress of less than 2 MPa, such that no material used in the design is at risk of mechanical failure during operation. The heat transfer analysis of the cooling system revealed that the temperature of the cooling plate is maintained within a range of $19.00^{\circ}$C to $21.41^{\circ}$C, which is sufficient to ensure that the silicon photomultipliers operate below a temperature of 25.00$^{\circ}$C, thereby optimizing their functionality

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2024

Magnetic field dependence of the neutral pion longitudinal screening mass in the linear sigma model with quarks

We use the linear sigma model with quarks to study the magnetic-field-induced modifications on the longitudinal screening mass for the neutral pion at one-loop level. The effects of the magnetic field are introduced into the self-energy, which contains the contributions from all the model particles. We find that, to obtain a reasonable description for the behavior with the field strength, we need to account for the magnetic field dependence of the particle masses. We also find that the couplings need to decrease fast enough with the field strength to then reach constant and smaller values as compared to their vacuum ones. The results illustrate the need to treat the magnetic corrections to the particle masses and couplings in a self-consistent manner, accounting for the backreaction of the field effects for the magnetic field dependence of the rest of the particle species and couplings in the model.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Anisotropic photon emission from gluon fusion and splitting in a strong magnetic background I: The two-gluon one-photon vertex

Having in mind the pre-equilibrium stage in peripheral heavy-ion collisions as a possible scenario for the production of electromagnetic radiation, we compute the two-gluon one-photon vertex in the presence of an intense magnetic field at one-loop order. The quarks in the loop are taken such that two of them occupy the lowest Landau level, with the third one occupying the first exited Landau level. When the field strength is the largest of the energy (squared) scales, the tensor basis describing this vertex corresponds to two of the three vector particles polarized in the longitudinal direction whereas the third one is polarized in the transverse direction. However, when the photon energy is of order or larger than the field strength, the explicit one-loop computation contains extra tensor structures that spoil the properties of the basis, compared to the case when the field strength is the largest of the energy scales, which signals that the calculation is incomplete. Nevertheless, by projecting the result onto the would-be basis, we show that the squared amplitude for processes involving two gluons and one photon exhibits the expected properties such as a preferred in-plane photon emission and a slightly decreasing strength for an increasing magnetic field strength. We comment on possible venues to improve the one-loop calculation that include accounting for progressive occupation of the three quarks of the lowest and first excited Landau levels such that, still working in the large field limit, a more complete description can be achieved when the photon energy increases.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Plasma screening and the critical end point in the QCD phase diagram

In heavy-ion collisions, fluctuations of conserved charges are known to be sensitive observables to probe criticality for the QCD phase transition and to locate the position of the putative critical end point (CEP). In this work we seek to show that the Linear Sigma Model with quarks produces an effective description of the QCD phase diagram in which deviations from a Hadron Resonance Gas are due to plasma screening effects, encoded in the contribution of the ring diagrams. Accounting for these, it is possible to include in the description the effect of long-range correlations. To set the model parameters we use LQCD results for the crossover transition at vanishing chemical potential. Finally, studying baryon number fluctuations from the model, we show that the CEP can be located within the HADES and/or the lowest end of the NICA energy domain, $\sqrt{s_{NN}}\sim 2$ GeV.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Collision energy dependence of the critical end point from baryon number fluctuations in the Linear Sigma Model with quarks

We show that the Linear Sigma Model with quarks produces an effective description of the QCD phase diagram and of the system's equilibrium distribution properties that deviate from those of the Hadron Resonance Gas Model. The deviation is due to the inclusion of plasma screening properties, encoded in the contribution of the ring diagrams and thus to the introduction of a key feature of plasmas near phase transitions, namely, long-range correlations. After fixing the model parameters using input from LQCD for the crossover transition at vanishing chemical potential, we study the location of the Critical End Point in the effective QCD phase diagram. We use the model to study baryon number fluctuations and show that in heavy-ion collisions, the CEP can be located for collision energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}}\sim 2$ GeV, namely, in the lowest NICA or within the HADES energy domain.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Lower bound for the neutrino magnetic moment from kick velocities induced at the birth of neutron stars

We show that the neutrino chirality flip, that can take place in the core of a neutron star at birth, is an efficient process to allow neutrinos to anisotropically escape, thus providing a to induce the neutron star kick velocities. The process is not subject to the {\it no-go theorem} since although the flip from left- to right-handed neutrinos happens at equilibrium, the reverse process does not take place given that right-handed neutrinos do not interact with matter and therefore detailed balance is lost. For simplicity, we model the neutron star core as being made of strange quark matter. We find that the process is efficient when the neutrino magnetic moment is not smaller than $4.7 \times 10^{-15}μ_B$, where $μ_B$ is the Bohr magneton. When this lower bound is combined with the most stringent upper bound, that uses the luminosity data obtained from the analysis of SN 1987A, our results set a range for the neutrino magnetic moment given by $4.7 \times 10^{-15} \leq μ_ν/μ_B \leq (0.1 - 0.4)\times 10^{-11}$. The obtained kick velocities for natal conditions are consistent with the observed ones and span the correct range of radii for typical magnetic field intensities.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

Fermion propagator in a rotating environment

We apply the exponential operator method to derive the propagator for a fermion immersed within a rigidly rotating environment with cylindrical geometry. Given that the rotation axis provides a preferred direction, Lorentz symmetry is lost and the general solution is not translationally invariant in the radial coordinate. However, under the approximation that the fermion is completely dragged by the vortical motion, valid for large angular velocities, translation invariance is recovered. The propagator can then be written in momentum space. The result is suited to be used applying ordinary Feynman rules for perturbative calculations in momentum space.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Magnetic field dependence of the neutral pion mass in the linear sigma model with quarks: The strong field case

We use the linear sigma model with quarks to find the magnetic field-induced modifications to the neutral pion mass at one-loop level. The magnetic field effects are introduced by using charged particle propagators in the presence of a magnetic background in the strong field regime. We show that when accounting for the effects of the magnetic field on the model couplings, the vacuum sigma field and the neutral pion self-energy, the neutral pion mass decreases monotonically as a function of the field strength. We find an excellent qualitative and quantitative agreement with recent lattice QCD calculations, reproducing the monotonically decreasing trend with the field strength as well as the decrease when lattice data approaches the physical vacuum pion mass from larger values.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Magnetic corrections to the boson self-coupling and boson-fermion coupling in the linear sigma model with quarks

We compute the magnetic field-induced modifications to the boson self-coupling and the boson-fermion coupling, in the static limit, using an effective model of QCD, the linear sigma model with quarks. The former is computed for arbitrary field strengths as well as using the strong field approximation. The latter is obtained in the strong field limit. The arbitrary field result for the boson self-coupling depends on the ultraviolet renormalization scale and this dependence cannot be removed by a simple vacuum subtraction. Using the strong field result as a guide, we find the appropriate choice for this scale and discuss the physical implications. The boson-fermion coupling depends on the Schwinger's phase and we show how this phase can be treated consistently in such a way that the magnetic field induced vertex modification is both gauge invariant and can be written with an explicit factor corresponding to energy-momentum conservation for the external particles. Both couplings show a modest decrease with the field strength.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Gluon polarization tensor and dispersion relation in a weakly magnetized medium

We study the polarization and dispersion properties of gluons moving within a weakly magnetized background at one-loop order. To this end, we show two alternative derivations of the charged fermion propagator in the weak field expansion and use this expression to compute the lowest order magnetic field correction to the gluon polarization tensor. We explicitly show that, in spite of its cumbersome appearance, the gluon polarization tensor is transverse as required by gauge invariance. We also show that none of the three polarization modes develops a magnetic mass and that gluons propagate along the light cone, non withstanding that Lorentz invariance is lost due to the presence of the magnetic field. By comparing with the expression for the gluon polarization tensor valid to all orders in the magnetic field, the existence of a second solution, corresponding to a finite gluon mass, is shown to be spurious and an artifact of the lowest order approximation in the field strength. We also study the strength of the polarization modes for real gluons. We conclude that, provided the spurious solutions are discarded, the lowest order approximation to the gluon polarization and dispersion properties is good as long as the field strength is small compared to the loop fermion mass.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Quark spin - thermal vorticity alignment and the Lambda, anti-Lambda polarization in heavy-ion collisions

It has been proposed that the $Λ$ and $\overlineΛ$ polarizations observed in heavy-ion collisions are due to the interaction between quark spin and thermal vorticity. In this work we report on a computation of the relaxation time required for this alignment to occur at finite temperature and baryon chemical potential, considering quarks with a finite mass. The calculation is performed after modelling the interaction by means of an effective vertex which couples the thermal gluons and quarks within the vortical medium. We show that the effect of the quark mass is to reduce the relaxation time as compared to the massless quark case. An intrinsic global polarization of quarks/antiquarks emerges which is shown to be linked with the $Λ$/$\barΛ$ polarization.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Relaxation time for the alignment between the spin of a finite-mass quark/antiquark and the thermal vorticity in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We study the relaxation time required for the alignment between the spin of a finite-mass quark/antiquark and the thermal vorticity, at finite temperature and baryon chemical potential, in the context of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The relaxation time is computed as the inverse of the total reaction rate that in turn is obtained from the imaginary part of the quark/antiquark self-energy. We model the interaction between spin and thermal vorticity within the medium by means of a vertex coupling quarks and thermal gluons that, for a uniform temperature, is proportional to the global angular velocity and inversely proportional to the temperature. We use realistic estimates for the angular velocities for different collision energies and show that the effect of the quark mass is to reduce the relaxation times as compared to the massless quark case. Using these relaxation times we estimate the intrinsic quark and antiquark polarizations produced by the thermal vorticity. We conclude by pointing out that, in spite of the former being larger than the latter, it is still possible to understand recent results from the STAR Beam Energy Scan when accounting for the fact that only a portion of quarks/antiquarks come from the denser and thus thermalized region in the collision.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Relaxation time for quark spin and thermal vorticity alignment in heavy-ion collisions

We compute the relaxation time for quark/antiquark spin and thermal vorticity alignment in a quark-gluon plasma at finite temperature and quark chemical potential. We model the interaction of quark/antiquark spin with thermal vorticity as driven by a phenomenological modification of the elementary quark interaction with gluons. We find that in a scenario where the angular velocity of the quark-gluon plasma produced in a peripheral heavy-ion collision is small, quarks/antiquarks take a long time to align their spin with the vorticity. However, when the angular velocity created in the reaction is large, the alignment is efficient and well within the lifetime of the system created in the reaction. The relaxation time is larger for antiquarks which points out to a difference for the polarization of hadrons and antihadrons when this alignment is preserved during hadronization.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Chiral asymmetry during the EWPT from CP-violating scattering off bubble walls

We compute a net electric current during a first order EWPT arising from the asymmetric propagation of fermion chiral modes due to a CP-violating interaction with the Higgs. The interaction is quantified in terms of a CP-violating phase in the bubble wall that separate both false and true vacuum phases. We comment on the possibility of this current to generate a seed magnetic field and its implications for primordial magne- togenesis in the early Universe.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Prompt photon yield and $v_2$ coefficient from gluon fusion induced by magnetic field in heavy-ion collision

We compute the production of prompt photons and the $v_2$ harmonic coefficient in relativistic heavy-ion collisions induced by gluon fusion in the presence of an intense magnetic field, during the early stages of the reaction. The calculations take into account several parameters which are relevant to the description of the experimental transverse momentum distribution, and elliptic flow for RHIC and LHC energies. The main imput is the strength of the magnetic field which varies in magnitude from 1 to 3 times the pion mass squared, and allows the gluon fusion that otherwise is forbidden in the absence of the field. The high gluon occupation number and the value of the saturation scale also play an important role in our calculation, as well as a flow velocity and geometrical factors. Our results support the idea that the origin of at least some of the photon excess observed in heavy-ion experiments may arise from magnetic field induced processes, and gives a good description of the experimental data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Charge asymmetry from CP-violating fermion scattering off bubble walls during the electroweak phase transition

We compute the net electric current generated during a first order electroweak phase transition when fermions transit from the false to the true vacuum. This current is generated by the CP-violating fermion interaction with the Higgs during the phase transition and is quantified in terms of a CP-violating phase in the bubble wall separating the symmetric from the symmetry-broken phases. We comment on the seed magnetic field that this current is able to generate and it is possible implications for magnetogenesis in the early universe during the electroweak phase transition.

hep-ph↗