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U. A. Wiedemann

Publications and source records attributed to U. A. Wiedemann.

36 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

The Fragility of High-pT Hadron Spectra as a Hard Probe

We study the suppression of high-pT hadron spectra in nuclear collisions, supplementing the perturbative QCD factorized formalism with radiative parton energy loss. We find that the nuclear modification factor which quantifies the degree of suppression, is almost pT-independent both for RHIC (in agreement with data) and for the LHC. This is a consequence of the shape of the partonic pT-spectrum in elementary collisions which implies that for the same value of the nuclear modification factor at higher pT, an increasingly smaller fraction of parton energy loss is needed. When the values of the time-averaged transport coefficient exceed 5 GeV^2/fm, the nuclear modification factor gradually loses its sensitivity to the corresponding produced energy density. This is due to particle production in the outer corona of the medium, which remains almost unsuppressed even for extreme densities. Thus, even for the highest experimentally accessible transverse momentum at the LHC and in contrast to jets, the measurement of leading partons via leading hadrons is not a penetrating probe of the dense matter, but a rather fragile probe which fragments for the opacities reached below the skin of the medium. Relating the transport coefficient to the energy density produced in the collision region, we find and discuss a phenomenon reminiscent of the opacity problem of elliptic flow: namely, the interaction of the hard parent parton with the medium appears to be much stronger than that expected for perturbative interactions of the hard parton with an ideal quark gluon plasma.

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Gluon Radiation off Massive Quarks in a QCD Medium

Medium-induced gluon radiation from massless and massive quarks is treated in the same formalism. The dead cone which regulates gluon radiation from massive quarks in the vacuum at small angles, is filled in the medium but constitutes a small fraction of the available phase space. Our study indicates that the energy loss for charmed hadrons at RHIC should be smaller than for light hadrons, but still sizable.

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Symmetry constraints for the emission angle dependence of Hanbury Brown--Twiss radii

We discuss symmetry constraints on the azimuthal oscillations of two-particle correlation (Hanbury Brown--Twiss interferometry) radii for non-central collisions between equal spherical nuclei. We also propose a new method for correcting in a model-independent way the emission angle dependent correlation function for finite event plane resolution and angular binning effects.

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Universal pion freeze-out phase-space density

Results on the pion phase-space density at freeze-out in sulphur-nucleus, Pb-Pb and pi-p collisions at the CERN SPS are presented. All heavy-ion reactions are consistent with the thermal Bose-Einstein distribution f=1/[exp(E/T)-1] at T ~ 120 MeV, modified for radial expansion. pi-p data are also consistent with f, but at T ~ 180 MeV and without radial flow.

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Coulomb Final State Interactions for Gaussian Wave Packets

Two-particle like-sign and unlike-sign correlations including Coulomb final state interactions are calculated for Gaussian wave packets emitted from a Gaussian source. We show that the width of the wave packets can be fully absorbed into the spatial and momentum space widths of an effective emission function for plane wave states, and that Coulomb final state interaction effects are sensitive only to the latter, but not to the wave packet width itself. Results from analytical and numerical calculations are compared with recently published work by other authors.

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Bose-Einstein Correlations in a Space-Time Approach to e+ e- Annihilation into Hadrons

A new treatment of Bose-Einstein correlations is incorporated in a space-time parton-shower model for e+ e- annihilation into hadrons. Two alternative afterburners are discussed, and we use a simple calculable model to demonstrate that they reproduce successfully the size of the hadron emission region. One of the afterburners is used to calculate two-pion correlations in e+ e- -> Z^0 -> hadrons and e+ e- -> W+ W- -> hadrons. Results are shown with and without resonance decays, for correlations along and transverse to the thrust jet axis in these two classes of events.

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Yano-Koonin-Podgoretskii Parametrisation of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss Correlator

The Yano-Koonin-Podgoretskii (YKP) parametrisation of Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) two-particle correlation functions opens new strategies for extracting the emission duration and testing the longitudinal expansion in heavy-ion collisions. Based on the recently derived model-independent expressions, we present a detailed parameter study of the YKP parameters for a finite, hydrodynamically expanding source model of heavy-ion collisions. For the class of models studied here, we show that the three YKP radius parameters have an interpretation as longitudinal extension, transverse extension and emission duration of the source in the YKP frame. This frame is specified by the fourth fit parameter, the Yano-Koonin velocity which describes to a good approximation the velocity of the fluid element with highest emissivity and allows to test for the longitudinal expansion of the source. Deviations from this interpretation of the YKP parameters are discussed quantitatively.

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Space-time Characteristics of the Fireball from HBT Interferometry

We present the Yano-Koonin-Podgoretskii parametrisation of the correlation function. Compared to the conventionally used Cartesian parametrisation, this one provides more straightforward measurement of the duration of the emission process in the fireball and a clearer signal of the longitudinal expansion, which is expected in ulrarelativistic heavy ion collisions.

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Quantum Mechanical Localization Effects for Bose-Einstein Correlations

For a set of N identical massive boson wavepackets with optimal initial quantum mechanical localization, we calculate the Hanbury-Brown/Twiss (HBT) two-particle correlation function. Our result provides an algorithm for calculating one-particle spectra and two-particle correlations from an arbitrary phase space occupation (q_i,p_i,t_i)_{i=1,N} as e.g. returned by event generators. It is a microscopic derivation of the result of the coherent state formalism, providing explicit finite multiplicity corrections. Both the one- and two-particle spectra depend explicitly on the initial spatial wavepacket width which parametrizes the quantum mechanical wavepacket localization. They provide upper and lower bounds which suggest that a realistic value for this width has the order of the Compton wavelength.

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An Inconsistency in the Simulation of Bose-Einstein Correlations

We show that the formalism commonly used to implement Bose-Einstein correlations in Monte-Carlo simulations can lead to values of the two-particle correlator significantly smaller than unity, in the case of sources with strong position-momentum correlations. This is more pronounced when the phase space of the emitted particles is strongly reduced by experimental acceptance or kinematic analysis selections. It is inconsistent with general principles according to which the Bose-Einstein correlator is larger than unity. This inconsistency seems to be rooted in the fact that quantum mechanical localization properties are not taken into account properly.

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Kaon Interferometry

Two-kaon and two-pion correlation functions for an expanding thermalized source are compared. In the Yano-Koonin-Podgoretskii parametrization of the correlation function, the HBT radius parameters are shown to obey M_\bot- scaling in the absence of collective transverse flow. This scaling is broken by transverse flow. An accurate comparison of pion and kaon correlations can thus resolve issue whether the observed M_\bot-dependence of the transverse radius parameter is due to transverse collective flow or other transverse gradients. Effects from resonance decays are shortly discussed.

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Lifetimes and Sizes from Two-Particle Correlation Functions

We discuss the Yano-Koonin-Podgoretskii (YKP) parametrization of the two-particle correlation function for azimuthally symmetric expanding sources. We derive model-independent expressions for the YKP fit parameters and discuss their physical interpretation. We use them to evaluate the YKP fit parameters and their momentum dependence for a simple model for the emission function and propose new strategies for extracting the source lifetime. Longitudinal expansion of the source can be seen directly in the rapidity dependence of the Yano-Koonin velocity.

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The Stueckelberg-Kibble Model as an Example of Quantized Symplectic Reduction

Recently, it has been observed that a certain class of classical theories with constraints can be quantized by a mathematical procedure known as Rieffel induction. After a short exposition of this idea, we apply the new quantization theory to the Stueckelberg-Kibble model. We explicitly construct the physical state space ${\cal H}_{phys}$, which carries a massive representation of the Poincaré group. The longitudinal one-particle component arises from a particular Bogoliubov transformation of the five (unphysical) degrees of freedom one has started with. Our discussion exhibits the particular features of the proposed constrained quantization theory in great clarity.

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Massless particles, electromagnetism, and Rieffel induction

The connection between space-time covariant representations (obtained by inducing from the Lorentz group) and irreducible unitary representations (induced from Wigner's little group) of the Poincaré group is re-examined in the massless case. In the situation relevant to physics, it is found that these are related by Marsden-Weinstein reduction with respect to a gauge group. An analogous phenomenon is observed for classical massless relativistic particles. This symplectic reduction procedure can be (`second') quantized using a generalization of the Rieffel induction technique in operator algebra theory, which is carried through in detail for electro- magnetism. Starting from the so-called Fermi representation of the field algebra generated by the free abelian gauge field, we construct a new (`rigged') sesquilinear form on the representation space, which is positive semi-definite, and given in terms of a Gaussian weak distribution (promeasure) on the gauge group (taken to be a Hilbert Lie group). This eventually constructs the algebra of observables of quantum electro- magnetism (directly in its vacuum representation) as a representation of the so-called algebra of weak observables induced by the trivial representation of the gauge group.

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