arXiv subjects

Marcus Bleicher

Publications and source records attributed to Marcus Bleicher.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Probing the QCD phase diagram with dileptons - a study using coarse-grained transport dynamics

Dilepton production in heavy-ion collisions at various energies is studied using coarse-grained transport simulations. Microscopic output from the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) model is hereby put on a grid of space-time cells which allows to extract the local temperature and chemical potential in each cell via an equation of state. The dilepton emission is then calculated applying in-medium spectral functions from hadronic many-body theory and partonic production rates based on lattice calculations. The comparison of the resulting spectra with experimental data shows that the dilepton excess beyond the decay contributions from a hadronic cocktail reflects the trajectory of the fireball in the $T-μ_{\mathrm{B}}$ plane of the QCD phase diagram.

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arXiv2016

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Gravity and Information

Various contenders for a complete theory of quantum gravity are at odds with each other. This is in particular seen in the ways they relate to information and black holes, and how to effectively treat quantization of the background spacetime. Modern perspectives on black hole evaporation suggest that quantum gravity effects in the near-horizon region can perturb the local geometry. The approaches differ, however, in the time scale on which one can expect these effects to become important. This panel session presents three points of view on these problems, and considers the ultimate prospect of observational tests in the near future.

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arXiv2016

Energy, centrality and momentum dependence of dielectron production at collider energies in a coarse-grained transport approach

Dilepton production in heavy-ion collisions at collider energies - i.e., for the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - is studied within an approach that uses coarse-grained transport simulations to calculate thermal dilepton emission applying in-medium spectral functions from hadronic many-body theory and partonic production rates based on lattice calculations. The microscopic output from the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) model is hereby put on a grid of space-time cells which allows to extract the local temperature and chemical potential in each cell via an equation of state. The resulting dilepton spectra are in good agreement with the experimental results for the range of RHIC energies, $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=19.6 - 200$ GeV. The comparison of data and model outcome shows that the newest measurements by the PHENIX and STAR collaborations are consistent and that the low-mass spectra can be described by a cocktail of hadronic decay contributions together with thermal emission from broadened vector-meson spectral functions and from the Quark-Gluon Plasma phase. Predictions for dilepton results at LHC energies show no significant change of the spectra as compared to RHIC, but a higher fraction of thermal contribution and harder slopes of the transverse momentum distributions due to the higher temperatures and flow obtained.

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arXiv2016

Photon and dilepton production at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research and the beam energy scan program at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider using coarse-grained microscopic transport simulations

We present calculations of dilepton and photon spectra for the energy range $E_{\text{lab}}=2-35$ $A$GeV which will be available for the Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at the future Facility for Anti-Proton and Ion Research (FAIR). The same energy regime will also be covered by phase II of the Beam Energy Scan at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC-BES). Coarse-grained dynamics from microscopic transport calculations of the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) model is used to determine temperature and chemical potentials, which allows for the use of dilepton and photon-emission rates from equilibrium quantum-field theory calculations. The results indicate that non-equilibrium effects, the presence of baryonic matter and the creation of a deconfined phase might show up in specific manners in the measurable dilepton invariant mass spectra and in the photon transverse momentum spectra. However, as the many influences are difficult to disentangle, we argue that the challenge for future measurements of electromagnetic probes will be to provide a high precision with uncertainties much lower than in previous experiments. Furthermore, a systematic study of the whole energy range covered by CBM at FAIR and RHIC-BES is necessary to discriminate between different effects, which influence the spectra, and to identify possible signatures of a phase transition.

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arXiv2016

Formation of deuterons by coalescence: Consequences on the deuteron number fluctuations

Two scenarios for cluster production have since long been discussed in the literature: i) direct emission of the clusters from a (grand canonical) thermal source or ii) subsequent formation of the clusters by coalescence of single nucleons. While both approaches have been successfully applied in the past it has not yet been clarified which of the two mechanisms dominates the cluster production. We propose to use recently developed event-by-event techniques to study particle multiplicity fluctuations on nuclear clusters and employ this analysis to the deuteron number fluctuations to disentangle the two production mechanisms. We argue that for a grand canonical cluster formation, the cluster fluctuations will follow Poisson distribution, while for the coalescence scenario, the fluctuations will strongly deviate from the Poisson expectation. We estimate the effect to be 10% for the variance and up to a factor of 5 for the kurtosis of the deuteron number multiplicity distribution. Our prediction can be tested in the beam energy scan program at RHIC as well as experiments at the FAIR and NICA facilities.

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arXiv2016

Unparticle contribution to the hydrogen atom ground state energy

In the present work we study the effect of unparticle modified static potentials on the energy levels of the hydrogen atom. By using Rayleigh-Schrödinger perturbation theory, we obtain the energy shift of the ground state and we compare it with experimental data. Bounds on the unparticle energy scale $Λ_\mathcal{U}$ as a function of the scaling dimension $d_\mathcal{U}$ and the coupling constant $λ$ are derived. We show that there exists a parameter region where bounds on $Λ_\mathcal{U}$ are stringent, signalling that unparticles could be tested in atomic physics experiments.

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arXiv2016

Constraining pion interactions at very high energies by cosmic ray data

We demonstrate that a substantial part of the present uncertainties in model predictions for the average maximum depth of cosmic ray-induced extensive air showers is related to very high energy pion-air collisions. Our analysis shows that the position of the maximum of the muon production profile in air showers is strongly sensitive to the properties of such interactions. Therefore, the measurements of the maximal muon production depth by cosmic ray experiments provide a unique opportunity to constrain the treatment of pion-air interactions at very high energies and to reduce thereby model-related uncertainties for the shower maximum depth.

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arXiv2016

Influence of kinematic cuts on the net charge distribution

The higher moments of the net charge distributions, e.g. the skewness and kurtosis, are studied within an infinite hadronic matter calculation in a transport approach. By dividing the box into several parts, the volume dependence of the fluctuations is investigated. After confirming that the initial distributions follow the expectations from a binomial distribution, the influence of quantum number conservation in this case the net charge in the system on the higher moments is evaluated. For this purpose, the composition of the hadron gas is adjusted and only pions and $ρ$ mesons are simulated to investigate the charge conservation effect. In addition, the effect of imposing kinematic cuts in momentum space is analysed. The role of resonance excitations and decays on the higher moments can also be studied within this model. This work is highly relevant to understand the experimental measurements of higher moments obtained in the RHIC beam energy scan and their comparison to lattice results and other theoretical calculations assuming infinite matter.

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arXiv2016

Double parton scattering: Impact of nonperturbative parton correlations

We apply the phenomenological Reggeon Field Theory framework to investigate the relative importance of perturbative and nonperturbative multiparton correlations for the treatment of double parton scattering (DPS) in proton-proton collisions. We obtain a significant correction to the so-called effective cross section for DPS due to nonperturbative parton splitting. When combined with the corresponding perturbative contribution, this results in a rather weak energy and transverse momentum dependence of the effective cross section, in agreement with experimental observations at the Tevatron and the Large Hadron Collider. In addition, we observed that color fluctuations have a sizable impact on the calculated rate of double parton scattering and on the relative importance of the perturbative parton splitting mechanism.

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arXiv2015

Test of the $X(3872)$ Structure in Antiproton-Nucleus Collisions

The present day experimental data on the $X(3872)$ decays do not allow to make clear conclusions on the dominating structure of this state. We discuss here an alternative way to study its structure by means of the two-step $\bar D^*$ (or $D$) production in $\bar p A$ reactions. If this process is mediated by $X(3872)$, the characteristic narrow peaks of the $\bar D^*$ (or $D$) distributions in the light cone momentum fraction at small transverse momenta will appear. This would unambiguously signal the $D \bar D^*$ + c.c. molecular composition of the $X(3872)$ state.

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arXiv2015

Sub-threshold $ϕ$ and $Ξ^-$ production by high mass resonances with UrQMD

We present a possible explanation for the deep sub-threshold, $ϕ$ and $Ξ^-$ production yields measured with the HADES experiment in Ar+KCl reactions at $E_{\mathrm{lab}}=1.76$ A GeV and present predictions for Au+Au reactions at $E_{\mathrm{lab}}=1.23$ A GeV. To explain the surprisingly high yields of $ϕ$ and $Ξ^-$ hadrons we propose new decay channels for high mass baryon resonances. These new decay channels are constrained by elementary $\mathrm{p+p}\rightarrow \mathrm{p+p+}ϕ$ cross sections, and $Ξ^-$ production in p+Nb. Based on the fits to the elementary reactions one obtains a satisfactorily description of $ϕ$ and $Ξ^-$ production in deep sub-threshold Ar+KCl reactions as well as the observed nuclear transparency ratio in proton induced $ϕ$ production in cold nuclear matter. The results implicate that no new medium effects are required to describe the rare strange particle production data in low energy nuclear collisions.

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arXiv2015

Net-proton number kurtosis and skewness in nuclear collisions: Influence of deuteron formation

We explore the influence of deuteron formation in the late stage of nucleus-nucleus reactions on the fluctuations observed in the final net-proton yields around midrapidity. At each investigated energy, the produced (anti-)proton yield at chemical freeze-out is assumed to fluctuate according to a Poisson distribution and in each event the probability for deuteron formation by coalescence is proportional to $(dN_{\mathrm{proton}}/dy)^2$. The protons that are then clustered in deuterons are usually not included in the experimental measurement of the net-proton fluctuations, therefore, we subtract these clustered protons from the final state proton number for the calculation of the net-proton fluctuations (the same is done in the anti-proton sector). Due to the non-linear deuteron formation probability the resulting distribution is not a Skellam distribution, but shows the interesting feature of a decrease in the kurtosis $κσ^2$ and a local maximum in the skewness $S σ$ observables as the collision energy decreases.

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arXiv2015

Dilepton production and reaction dynamics in heavy-ion collisions at SIS energies from coarse-grained transport simulations

Dilepton invariant-mass spectra for heavy-ion collisions at SIS 18 and BEVALAC energies are calculated using a coarse-grained time evolution from the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) model. The coarse-graining of the microscopic simulations enables to calculate thermal dilepton emission rates by application of in-medium spectral functions from equilibrium quantum-field theoretical calculations. The results show that extremely high baryon chemical potentials dominate the evolution of the created hot and dense fireball. Consequently, a significant modification of the $ρ$ spectral shape becomes visible in the dilepton invariant-mass spectrum, resulting in an enhancement in the low-mass region $M_{ee} = 200$ to 600 MeV/$c^{2}$. This enhancement, mainly caused by baryonic effects on the $ρ$ spectral shape, can fully describe the experimentally observed excess above the hadronic cocktail contributions in Ar+KCl ($E_{\mathrm{lab}}=1.76$ $A$GeV) reactions as measured by the HADES collaboration and also gives a good explanation of the older DLS Ca+Ca ($E_{\mathrm{lab}}=1.04$ $A$GeV) data. For the larger Au+Au ($E_{\mathrm{lab}}=1.23$ $A$GeV) system, we predict an even stronger excess from our calculations. A systematic comparison of the results for different system sizes from C+C to Au+Au shows that the thermal dilepton yield increases stronger ($\propto A^{4/3}$) than the hadronic background contributions, which scale with $A$, due to its sensitivity on the time evolution of the reaction. We stress that the findings of the present work are consistent with our previous coarse-graining results for the NA60 measurements at top SPS energy. We argue that it is possible to describe the dilepton results from SIS 18 up to SPS energies by considering the modifications of the $ρ$ spectral function inside a hot and dense medium within the same model.

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arXiv2015

Influence of clustering and hadron potentials on the rapidity distribution of protons from the UrQMD model

The Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) model supplemented by potentials for both pre-formed hadrons and confined baryons (called UrQMD/M) are used to describe rapidity distributions of both the E895 proton data at AGS energies and the NA49 net proton data at SPS energies. With the help of a coalescence afterburner using only one parameter set of ($R_0$, $P_0$)=(3.8 fm, 0.3 GeV$/$c), both sets of experimental data can be described fairly well except for a small discrepancy seen for the net protons at mid-rapidity from heavy ion collisions (HICs) at high SPS energies. Furthermore, in contrast to the logarithmic dependence with beam energy at SIS energies there are still about 10$\%$ of protons in clusters from central HICs at the beam energy of $80$ GeV$/$nucleon.

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arXiv2015

A coarse-graining approach for dilepton production at SPS energies

Coarse-grained output from transport calculations is used to determine thermal dilepton emission rates by applying medium-modified spectral functions from thermal quantum field theoretical models. By averaging over an ensemble of events generated with the UrQMD transport model, we extract the local thermodynamic properties at each time step of the calculation. With an equation of state the temperature $T$ and chemical potential $μ_{\mathrm{B}}$ can be determined. The approach goes beyond simplified fireball models of the bulk-medium evolution by treating the full (3+1)-dimensional expansion of the system with realistic time and density profiles. For the calculation of thermal dilepton rates we use the in-medium spectral function of the $ρ$ meson developed by Rapp and Wambach and consider thermal QGP and multi-pion contributions as well. The approach is applied to the evaluation of dimuon production in In+In collisions at top SPS energy. Comparison to the experimental results of the NA60 experiment shows good agreement of this ansatz. We find that the experimentally observed low-mass dilepton excess in the mass region from 0.2 to 0.6 GeV can be explained by a broadening of the $ρ$ spectral function with a small mass shift. In contrast, the intermediate mass region ($M > 1.5$ GeV) is dominated by a contribution from the quark-gluon plasma. These findings agree with previous calculations with fireball parametrizations. This agreement in spite of differences in the reaction dynamics between both approaches indicates that the time-integrated dilepton spectra are not very sensitive to details of the space-time evolution of the collision.

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arXiv2015

Vector Meson Spectral Functions in a Coarse-Graining Approach

Dilepton production in heavy-ion collisions at top SPS energy is investigated within a coarse-graining approach that combines an underlying microscopic evolution of the nuclear reaction with the application of medium-modified spectral functions. Extracting local energy and baryon density for a grid of small space-time cells and going to each cell's rest frame enables to determine local temperature and chemical potential by application of an equation of state. This allows for the calculation of thermal dilepton emission. We apply and compare two different spectral functions for the $ρ$: A hadronic many-body calculation and an approach that uses empirical scattering amplitudes. Quantitatively good agreement of the model calculations with the data from the NA60 collaboration is achieved for both spectral functions, but in detail the hadronic many-body approach leads to a better description, especially of the broadening around the pole mass of the $ρ$ and for the low-mass excess. We further show that the presence of a pion chemical potential significantly influences the dilepton yield.

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arXiv2015

Recent results from the UrQMD hybrid model for heavy ion collisions

These proceedings present recent results from transport-hydrodynamics-hybrid models for heavy ion collisions at relativistic energies. The main focus is on the absorption of (anti-)protons in the hadronic afterburner stage of the reaction, di-lepton production at SPS and heavy quark dynamics.

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arXiv2015

The beam energy dependence of collective flow in heavy ion collisions

The major goals of heavy ion research are to explore the phase diagram of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and to investigate the properties of the quark gluon plasma (QGP), a new state of matter created at high temperatures and/or densities. Collective anisotropic flow is one of the most promising observables to gain insights about the properties of the system created in relativistic heavy ion reactions. The current status of the beam energy dependence of the first three Fourier coefficients of the azimuthal distribution of the produced particles $v_1$ to $v_3$ within hybrid transport plus hydrodynamics approaches are summarized.

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