arXiv subjects

Vincenzo Greco

Publications and source records attributed to Vincenzo Greco.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Probing the electromagnetic fields in ultrarelativistic collisions with leptons from $Z^0$ decay and charmed mesons

Ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions are expected to generate a huge electromagnetic field, $eB \approx 10^{18}\, Gauss$, that induces a splitting of the directed flow, $v_1=\left\langle p_x/p_T \right\rangle $, of charged particles and anti-particles. Such a splitting for charmed meson manifests even for neutral particle/anti-particles pairs ($D^0, \overline{D}^0$), hence being also a unique probe of the formation of the quark-gluon plasma phase. For the first time here we show that electromagnetic field may generate a $v_1(D^0) - v_1( \overline{D}^0)$ as huge as the one recently observed at LHC against early expectations. Within this new research topic we point out a novel measurement: $v_1$ of leptons from $Z^0$ decay and its correlation to that of $D$ and $B$ mesons. The correlation for $Δv_1$ of $l^{+} - l^{-}$, $D^0-\overline{D}^0$ and $B^0-\overline{B}^0$ would provide a strong probe of the electromagnetic origin of the splitting and hence of the formation of a quark-gluon plasma phase with heavy quarks as degrees of freedom. The case of the $v_1({l^{\pm}})$ presents features due to the peculiar form of the $p_T$ spectrum never appreciated before in the study of heavy ion collisions. We specifically predict a sudden change of the $Δv_1(p_T)$ of leptons at $p_T=45$ GeV$/c$, that can be traced back to a universal relation of $Δv_1$ with the slope of the $p_T$ particle distribution and the integrated effect of the Lorentz force.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2021

Ballistic diffusion of heavy quarks in the early stage of relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC

We study the diffusion of charm quarks in the early stage of high energy nuclear collisions at the RHIC and the LHC. The main novelty of the present study is the introduction of the color current carried by the heavy quarks that propagate in the evolving Glasma (Ev-Glasma), that is responsible of the energy loss via polarization of the medium. We compute the transverse momentum broadening, $σ_p$, of charm in the pre-thermalization stage, and the impact of the diffusion on the nuclear modification factor in nucleus-nucleus collisions. The net effect of energy loss is marginal in the pre-thermalization stage. The study is completed by the calculation of coordinate spreading, $σ_x$, and by a comparison with Langevin dynamics. $σ_p$ in Ev-Glasma overshoots the result of standard Langevin dynamics at the end of the pre-hydro regime. We interpret this as a result of memory of the color force acting on the charm quarks that implies $σ_p\propto t^2$. Moreover, $σ_x\propto t^2 $ in the pre-hydro stage shows that the charm quark in the Ev-Glasma is in the regime of ballistic diffusion.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Directed flow of D mesons at RHIC and LHC: non-perturbative dynamics, longitudinal bulk matter asymmetry and electromagnetic fields

We present a study of the directed flow $v_1$ for $D$ mesons discussing both the impact of initial vorticity and electromagnetic field. Recent studies predicted that $v_1$ for $D$ mesons is expected to be surprisingly much larger than that of light charged hadrons; we clarify that this is due to a different mechanism leading to the formation of a directed flow with respect to the one of the bulk matter at both relativistic and non-relativistic energies. We point out that the very large $v_1$ for $D$ mesons can be generated only if there is a longitudinal asymmetry between the bulk matter and the charm quarks and if the latter have a large non-perturbative interaction in the QGP medium. A quite good agreement with the data of STAR and ALICE is obtained if the diffusion coefficient able to correctly predict the $R_{AA}(p_T)$, $v_{2}(p_T)$ and $v_{3}(p_T)$ of $D$ meson is employed. Furthermore, the mechanism for the build-up of the $v_1(y)$ is associated to a quite small formation time that can be expected to be more sensitive to the initial high-temperature dependence of the charm diffusion coefficient. We discuss also the splitting of $v_1$ for $D^0$ and $\bar D^0$ due to the electromagnetic field that is again much larger than the one observed for charged particles and in agreement with the data by STAR that have however still error bars comparable with the splitting itself, while at LHC standard electromagnetic profile assuming a constant conductivity is not able to account for the huge splitting observed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Directed flow induced by electromagnetic fields in heavy ion collisions

Strong electromagnetic fields are expected to be generated in off-central relativistic heavy ion collisions, which can induce a splitting of the directed flow of charged particles and anti-particles ($Δv_1$). Such a splitting manifests even for neutral charmed mesons pairs ($D^0,\bar{D}^0$), hence being a direct probe of the formation of deconfined phase with charm quarks as degree of freedom. In the limit of large $p_T$ and weak interaction with the QGP, a formula of $Δv_1(p_T,y_z)$ of charged particles and anti-particles as a function of $p_T$ and rapidity $y_z$ can be obtained, which is found to be related to the spectra of charged particles and the integrated effect of the Lorentz force. This formula is expected to be valid to heavy quarks and leptons at high $p_T$, where the modification to their equations of motion due to the interaction with both QGP and electromagnetic fields is small, and should have a general application. We also proposed a measurement of $Δv_1(p_T,y_z)$ of leptons from $Z^0$ decay and its correlation to that of $D$ mesons, which would be a strong probe determining whether the large splitting measured in experiments has the electromagnetic origin.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2020

Transmission of airborne virus through sneezed and coughed droplets

The spread of COVID19 through droplets ejected by infected individuals during sneezing and coughing has been considered as a matter of key concern. Therefore, a quantitative understanding of the propagation of droplets containing virus assumes immense importance. Here we investigate the evolution of droplets in space and time under varying external conditions of temperature, humidity and wind flow by using laws of statistical and fluid mechanics. The effects of drag, diffusion and the gravity on droplets of different sizes and ejection velocities have been considered during their motion in the air. In still air we found that bigger droplets traverse larger distance but the smaller droplets remain suspended in the air for longer time. So, in still air the horizontal distance that a healthy individual should maintain from an infected one is determined by the bigger droplets but the time interval to be maintained is determined by the smaller droplets. We show that in places with wind flow the lighter droplets travel larger distance and remain suspended in the air for longer time. Therefore, we conclude that both temporal and the geometric distance that a healthy individual should maintain from an infected one is determined by the smaller droplets under flowing air which makes the use of mask mandatory to prevent the virus. The maintenance of only stationary separation between healthy and infected individuals is not substantiated. The quantitative results obtained here will be useful to devise strategies for preventing the spread of other types of droplets also containing microorganisms.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2020

Impact of off-shell dynamics on the transport properties and the dynamical evolution of Charm Quarks at RHIC and LHC temperatures

We evaluate drag and diffusion transport coefficients comparing a quasi-particle approximation with on-shell constituents of the QGP medium and a dynamical quasi-particles model with off-shell bulk medium at finite temperature T. We study the effects of the width $γ$ of the particles of the bulk medium on the charm quark transport properties exploring the range where $γ< M_{q,g}$. We find that off-shell effects are in general quite moderate and can induce a reduction of the drag coefficient at low momenta that disappear already at moderate momenta, $p \gtrsim 2-3\, \rm GeV$. We also observe a moderate reduction of the breaking of the Fluctuation-Dissipation theorem (FDT) at finite momenta. Moreover, we have performed a first study of the dynamical evolution of HQ elastic energy loss in a bulk medium at fixed temperature extending the Boltzmann (BM) collision integral to include off-shell dynamics. A comparison among the Langevin dynamics, the BM collisional integral with on-shell and the BM extension to off-shell dynamics shows that the evolution of charm energy when off-shell effects are included remain quite similar to the case of the on-shell BM collision integral.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Study of collective anisotropies $v_2$ and $v_3$ and their fluctuations in $pA$ collisions at LHC within a relativistic transport approach

We have developed a relativistic transport approach at fixed $η/s(T)$ that incorporates initial space fluctuations generated by wounded quark model to study the hadron observables in 5.02 TeV p+Pb collisions. We find that our approach is able to correctly predict quite well several existing experimental measurements assuming a matter with $η/s=1/4π$, a result similar to previous studies within a viscous hydrodynamics approach. Besides, we further discuss the sensitivity of the results on both $η/s(T)$ and the smearing width. Our transport approach has the possibility to include in initial conditions the power law tail associated to minijet, and this improvement extends the agreement with the experimental data to higher $p_T$ ranges. We also perform a comparison to Pb+Pb collisions pointing out that even if the collective flows have a similar magnitude the features of the matter created are different. By studying the correlation between collective flows and initial geometry, we find that the correlation decreases faster in small systems with the increase of $n$ and centrality. In particular we show that the variance of $σ_{v_n}/\langle v_n\rangle$ has a quite different evolution with centrality for p+Pb, so their measurement could provide some further hint about the correctness of current modelling.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2019

Heavy-light flavour correlations of anisotropic flows at LHC energies within event-by-event transport approach

The heavy quarks (HQs) are unique probe of the hot QCD matter properties and their dynamics is coupled to the locally thermalized expanding quark gluon plasma. We present here a novel study of the event by event correlations between light and heavy flavour flow harmonics at LHC energy within a transport approach. Interaction between heavy quarks and light quarks have been taken into account exploring the impact of different temperature dependence of the transport coefficients $D_s$ and $Γ$. Our study indicates that $v^{heavy}_n-v^{light}_n$ correlation and the relative fluctuations of anisotropic flows, $σ_{v_{n}}/\langle v_n \rangle$, are novel observables to understand the heavy quark-bulk interaction and are sensitive to the temperature dependence even to moderate differences of $D_s(T)$, or $Γ(T)$. Hence a comparison of such new observables for HQ to upcoming experimental data at both RHIC and LHC can put further constraints on heavy quark transport coefficients and in particular on its temperature dependence toward a solid comparison between the phenomenological determination and the lattice QCD calculations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Impact of Glasma on heavy quark observables in nucleus-nucleus collisions at LHC

In the pre-thermal equilibrium stage of relativistic heavy-ion collisions, a strong quasi-classical transverse gluon field emerges at about $τ_0 \simeq 0.1 \, \rm fm/c$ and evolves together with their longitudinal counterparts according to the classical Yang-Mills (CYM) equations. Recently it has been shown that these fields induce a diffusion of charm quarks in momentum space resulting in a tilt of their spectrum without a significant drag. We find that in nucleus-nucleus collisions at LHC such a novel dynamics of charm quarks leads to an initial enhancement of the nuclear modification factor ($R_{AA}$) at $p_T$ larger than 2 GeV$/c$ contrary to the standard lore. Moreover, the same dynamics leads to a larger final elliptic flow ($v_2$) inducing a relation between $R_{AA}$ and $v_2$ that is quite close to the experimental measurements. Our study also shows that such an initial pre-thermal stage is unlikely to be described in terms of a standard drag and diffusion dynamics, because even if one tune such coefficients to reproduce the same $R_{AA}(p_T)$ this would imply a significantly smaller $v_2$.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2019

Towards the determination of heavy-quark transport coefficients in quark-gluon plasma

Several transport models have been employed in recent years to analyze heavy-flavor meson spectra in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. Heavy-quark transport coefficients extracted from these models with their default parameters vary, however, by up to a factor of 5 at high momenta. To investigate the origin of this large theoretical uncertainty, a systematic comparison of heavy-quark transport coefficients is carried out between various transport models. Within a common scheme devised for the nuclear modification factor of charm quarks in a brick medium of a quark-gluon plasma, the systematic uncertainty of the extracted drag coefficient among these models is shown to be reduced to a factor of 2, which can be viewed as the smallest intrinsic systematical error band achievable at present time. This indicates the importance of a realistic hydrodynamic evolution constrained by bulk hadron spectra and of heavy-quark hadronization for understanding the final heavy-flavor hadron spectra and extracting heavy-quark drag coefficient. The transverse transport coefficient is less constrained due to the influence of the underlying mechanism for heavy-quark medium interaction. Additional constraints on transport models such as energy loss fluctuation and transverse-momentum broadening can further reduce theoretical uncertainties in the extracted transport coefficients.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2019

Direct flow of heavy mesons as unique probe of the initial Electro-Magnetic fields in Ultra-Relativistic Heavy Ion collisions

In Ultra-relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions (HICs) very strong initial electro-magnetic (E.M.) fields are created: the order of magnitude of the magnetic field is about $10^{19} \, Gauss$, the most intense field in the Universe, even larger than that of a magnetar. These fields rapidly decrease in time, inducing a drift of particles in the reaction plane. The resulting flow is odd under charge exchange and this allows to distinguish it from the large vorticity of the bulk matter due to the initial angular momentum conservation. Conjointly charm quarks, thanks to their large mass $M_{c}>>Λ_{QCD}$, are produced in hard partonic processes at formation time $τ_f \approx 1\,/\,( 2M_{HQ} )$ which is comparable with the time scale when the E.M. field attains its maximum value. Moreover, with a mass of $M_c \approx 1.3 \,$ GeV there should be no mixing with the chiral magnetic dynamics and the condition $M_c \gg T$ allows charm quarks to have sufficiently large thermalization time, so that they can probe the entire phase-space evolution of the QGP retaining the initial kick given by the E.M. field. We show that such E.M. field entails a transverse motion of charm quarks resulting in a splitting of directed flow $v_1$ of $ D$ and $\bar{D}$ mesons of few percent, i.e. much larger compared to the measured pion one.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2018

Cracking the difference of estimating heavy quark transport coefficients in a Quark-Gluon Plasma

Heavy flavor observables provide valuable information on the properties of the hot and dense Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions. Various microscopic models have successfully described many of the observables associated with its formation. Their transport coefficients differ, however, due to different assumptions about the underlying interaction of the heavy quarks with the plasma constituents, different initial geometries and formation times, different hadronization processes and a different time evolution of the QGP. In this study we present the transport coefficients of all these models and investigate systematically how some of these assumptions influence the heavy quark properties at the end of the QGP expansion. For this purpose we impose on these models the same initial condition and the same model for the QGP expansion and show that both have considerable influence on $R_{AA}$ and $v_2$.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2018

Charmed Hadrons from Coalescence plus Fragmentation in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC

In a coalescence plus fragmentation approach we calculate the heavy baryon/meson ratio and the $p_T$ spectra of charmed hadrons $D^{0}$, $D_{s}$ and $Λ_{c}^{+}$ in a wide range of transverse momentum from low $p_T$ up to about 10 GeV and discuss their ratios from RHIC to LHC energies without any change of the coalescence parameters. We have included the contribution from decays of heavy hadron resonances and also the one due to fragmentation of heavy quarks which do not undergo the coalescence process. The coalescence process is tuned to have all charm quarks hadronizing in the $p_T\rightarrow 0$ limit and at finite $p_T$ charm quarks not undergoing coalescence are hadronized by independent fragmentation. The $p_T$ dependence of the baryon/meson ratios are found to be sensitive to the masses of coalescing quarks, in particular the $Λ_{c}/D^{0}$ can reach values of about $\rm 1÷1.5 $ at $p_T \approx \, 3$ \mbox{GeV}, or larger, similarly to the light baryon/meson ratio like $p/π$ and $Λ/K$, however a marked difference is a quite weak $p_T$ dependence with respect to the light case, such that a larger value at intermediate $p_T$ implies a relatively large value also for the integrated yields. A comparison with other coalescence model and with the prediction of thermal model is discussed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Hadrons from Coalescence plus Fragmentation in AA collisions from RHIC to LHC energy

In a coalescence plus independent fragmentation approach we calculate the $p_T$ spectra of the main hadrons: $π, K, p, \bar p, Λ, ϕ$ in a wide range of transverse momentum from low $p_T$ up to about 10 GeV. The approach in its main features was developed several years ago at RHIC energy. Augmenting the model with the inclusion of some more main resonance decays, we show that the approach correctly predicts the evolution of the $p_T$ spectra from RHIC to LHC energy and in particular the baryon-to-meson ratios $p/π,\bar p/π,Λ/K$ that reach a value of the order of unit at $p_T \sim 3\, \rm GeV$. This is achieved without any change of the coalescence parameters. The more recent availability of experimental data up to $p_T \sim 10\rm\, GeV$ for $Λ$ spectrum as well as for $p/π$ and $Λ/K$ shows some lack of yield in a limited $p_T$ range around 6 GeV. This indicates that the baryons $p_T$ spectra from AKK fragmentation functions are too flat at $p_T\lesssim 8 \,\rm GeV$. We also show that in a coalescence plus fragmentation approach one predicts a nearly $p_T$ independent $p/ϕ$ ratio up to $p_T \sim 4 \rm\, GeV$ followed by a significant decrease at higher $p_T$. Such a behavior is driven by a similar radial flow effect at $p_T< 2 \,\rm GeV$ and the dominance of fragmentation for $ϕ$ at larger $p_T$.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2017

Effect of pre-equilibrium phase on $R_{AA}$ and $v_2$ of heavy quarks in heavy ion collisions

Heavy quark $R_{AA}$ and $v_2$ have been calculated at RHIC energy considering initial conditions with and without pre-equilibrium phase to highlight the effect of the latter on heavy quark observables. The momentum evolution of the heavy quark has been studied by means of the Boltzmann transport equation. To model the pre-equilibrium phase we have used the KLN initial condition. We have found that the pre-equilibrium phase impacts the $R_{AA}$ of about 20-25 $\%$ whereas the impact on $v_2$ is very negligible. We have also calculated heavy quark $R_{AA}$ and $v_2$ in the case of initializations with early thermalized quark-gluon plasma. We have checked that the particular form of the initial spectrum is not very important for $R_{AA}$, the larger energy density being more important. In fact, comparing the results obtained within the two initializations we have found that one can mimic the impact of the pre-equilibrium phase using a early thermalized QGP medium.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2017

Estimating the Charm Quark Diffusion Coefficient and thermalization time from D meson spectra at RHIC and LHC

We describe the propagation of charm quarks in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) by means of a Boltzmann transport approach. Non-perturbative interaction between heavy quarks and light quarks have been taken into account through a quasi-particle approach in which light partons are dressed with thermal masses tuned to lQCD thermodynamics. Such a model is able to describe the main feature of the non-perturbative dynamics: the enhancement of the interaction strength near $T_c$. We show that the resulting charm in-medium evolution is able to correctly predict simultaneously the nuclear suppression factor, $R_{AA}$, and the elliptic flow, $v_2$, at both RHIC and LHC energies and at different centralities. The hadronization of charm quarks is described by mean of an hybrid model of fragmentation plus coalescence and plays a key role toward the agreeement with experimental data. We also performed calculations within the Langevin approach which can lead to very similar $R_{AA}(p_T)$ as Boltzmann, but the charm drag coefficient as to be reduced by about a $30\%$ and also generates an elliptic flow $v_2(p_T)$ is about a $15\%$ smaller. We finally compare the space diffusion coefficient $2πTD_s$ extracted by our phenomenological approach to lattice QCD results, finding a satisfying agreement within the present systematic uncertainties. Our analysis implies a charm thermalization time, in the $p\rightarrow 0$ limit, of about $4-6 \, fm/c$ which is smaller than the QGP lifetime at LHC energy.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2017

Directed Flow of Charm Quarks as a Witness of the Initial Strong Magnetic Field in Ultra-Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

Ultra-relativistic Heavy-Ion Collision (HIC) generates very strong initial magnetic field ($\vec B$) inducing a vorticity in the reaction plane. The high $\vec{B}$ influences the evolution dynamics that is opposed by the large Faraday current due to electric field generated by the time varying $\vec{B}$. We show that the resultant effects entail a significantly large directed flow ($v_1$) of charm quarks (CQs) compared to light quarks due to a combination of several favorable conditions for CQs, mainly: (i) unlike light quarks formation time scale of CQs, $τ_f \simeq \, 0.1 \rm fm/c$ is comparable to the time scale when $\vec B$ attains its maximum value and (ii) the kinetic relaxation time of CQs is similar to the QGP lifetime, this helps the CQ to retain the initial kick picked up from the electromagnetic field in the transverse direction. The effect is also odd under charge exchange allowing to distinguish it from the vorticity of the bulk matter due to the initial angular momentum conservation; conjointly thanks to its mass, $M_c >>Λ_{QCD}$, there should be no mixing with the chiral magnetic dynamics. Hence CQs provide very crucial and independent information on the strength of the magnetic field produced in HIC.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2017

Propagation of heavy baryons in heavy-ion collisions

The drag and diffusion coefficients of heavy baryons ($Λ_c$ and $Λ_b$) in the hadronic phase created in the latter stage of the heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies have been evaluated recently. In this work we compute some experimental observables, such as the nuclear suppression factor $R_{AA}$ and the elliptic flow $v_2$ of heavy baryons at RHIC and LHC energies, highlighting the role of the hadronic phase contribution to these observables, which are going to be measured at Run 3 of LHC. For the time evolution of the heavy quarks in the QGP and heavy baryons in the hadronic phase we use the Langevin dynamics. For the hadronization of the heavy quarks to heavy baryons we employ Peterson fragmentation functions. We observe a strong suppression of both the $Λ_c$ and $Λ_b$. We find that the hadronic medium has a sizable impact on the heavy-baryon elliptic flow whereas the impact of hadronic medium rescattering is almost unnoticeable on the nuclear suppression factor. We evaluate the $Λ_c/D$ ratio at RHIC and LHC. We find that $Λ_c/D$ ratio remain unaffected due to the hadronic phase rescattering which enable it as a nobel probe of QGP phase dynamics along with its hadronization.

nucl-th↗