32825506
Fluctuations, strangeness, and quasiquarks in heavy-ion collisions from lattice QCD
We report measurements of diagonal susceptibilities for the baryon number, ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{B}$, electrical charge, ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{Q}$, third component of isospin, ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{I}$, strangeness, ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{S}$, and hypercharge, ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{Y}$, as well as the off-diagonal ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{BQ}$, ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{BY}$, ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{BS}$, etc. We show that the ratios of susceptibilities in the high-temperature phase are robust variables, independent of lattice spacing, and therefore give predictions for experiments. We also investigate strangeness production and flavor symmetry breaking matrix elements at finite temperature. Finally, we present evidence that in the high-temperature phase of QCD the different flavor quantum numbers are excited in linkages which are exactly the same as one expects from quarks. We present some investigations of these quarklike quasiparticles.
17443615
Lattice QCD for RHIC
I briefly introduce the methods by which lattice QCD predictions for RHIC are obtained. Next I deal with lattice determinations of strangeness production and event-to-event fluctuations of conserved quantities. I also present a new diagrammatic method for computing derivatives with respect to chemical potentials, and conclude with discussions of some tests of thermal perturbation theory which follow.
123004962
Flavour degrees of freedom and the transition temperature in QCD
We study the finite temperature transition in QCD with four flavours of dynamical quarks. Our simulation is performed on an 8×16 3 lattice for quarks of mass ma=0.01. At the coupling β c =5.15, we find long-lived metastable states, as well as an abrupt change in the entropy density, suggesting a first order phase transition. Using presently available results from corresponding calculations of the hadron masses and the chiral condensate, this gives us a transition temperature T c ≅100 MeV, which is a factor two lower than the transition temperature found in quenched QCD.
122166973
The phase diagram of QCD: methods and logic of the comparison of experiments and theory
Abstract A small review of the phase diagram of QCD is presented. This is followed by a discussion of the conditions under which experimental data on the fluctuations of conserved quantities in heavy-ion collisions can be treated in the grand canonical ensemble. A robust method for detecting the presence of a nearby critical point in experiments is given. There is a short discussion of the need for non-Gaussian error analysis.
119431013
A precise determination of T_c in QCD from scaling
Existing lattice data on the QCD phase transition are analyzed in renormalized perturbation theory. In quenched QCD it is found that T_c scales for lattices with only 3 time slices, and that T_c/Lambda_msbar=1.15 \pm 0.05. A preliminary estimate in QCD with two flavours of dynamical quarks shows that this ratio depends on the quark mass. For realistic quark masses we estimate T_c/Lambda_msbar=0.49 \pm 0.02. We also investigate the equation of state in quenched QCD at 1-loop order in renormalised perturbation theory.
121387686
Hybrid Monte Carlo simulations of a two-dimensional gauge theory
Through a study of the dynamics of the two-dimensional U(1) pure gauge theory we find exponential slowing down in barrier penetration problems. We verify that the dynamical critical exponent in HMC can be tuned exactly to 1, and that normal and gauge fixed updates have equal cost.
120040874
Proton-proton correlations, the fireball model, and inclusive pion spectrum
Two proton correlations seen in the reaction /sup 12/C on /sup 12/C are calculated in the framework of the two fireball model. Substantial correlation is obtained. It is necessary to do the calculation in phase space, i.e., to use the microcanonical ensemble rather than the grand canonical ensemble. A model calculation shows that the latter will also overestimate pion production in the high energy tail compared to an energy- and momentum conserving phase space calculation.
118483048
TRIBIMAXIMAL MIXING IN NEUTRINO MASS MATRICES WITH TEXTURE ZEROS OR VANISHING MINORS
We study the existence of one/two texture zeros or one/two vanishing minors in the neutrino mass matrix with μτ symmetry. In the basis where the charged lepton mass matrix and the Dirac neutrino mass matrix are diagonal, the one/two zeros or one/two vanishing minors on the right-handed Majorana mass matrix having μτ symmetry will propagate via seesaw mechanism as one/two vanishing minors or one/two texture zeros in the neutrino mass matrix with μτ symmetry respectively. It is found that only five such texture structures of the neutrino mass matrix are phenomenologically viable. For tribimaximal mixing, these texture structures reduce the number of free parameters to one. Interesting predictions are obtained for the effective Majorana mass Mee, the absolute mass scale and the Majorana-type CP violating phases.
15293327
Liquid-Gas Phase Transition in Nuclear Multifragmentation
Heavy-ion collisions allow one to pump energy into a nuclear system. In central collisions of equal size nuclei one can also create a significant amount of compression using high energy nuclear beams. The possibility of studying nuclei far from normal conditions raises the question: can we study phase transitions in nuclei similar, for instance, to the way, one can study phase transition in water? This is the subject of the present article.
17387019
Inhomogeneous nucleation in a quark-hadron phase transition
The effect of subcritical hadron bubbles on a first-order quark-hadron phase transition is studied. These subcritical hadron bubbles are created due to thermal fluctuations, and can introduce a finite amount of phase mixing (quark phase mixed with hadron phase) even at and above the critical temperature. For reasonable choices of surface tension and correlation length, as obtained from the lattice QCD calculations, we show that the amount of phase mixing at the critical temperature remains below the percolation threshold. Thus, as the system cools below the critical temperature, the transition proceeds through the nucleation of critical-size hadron bubbles from a metastable quark-gluon phase (QGP), within an inhomogeneous background populated by an equilibrium distribution of subcritical hadron bubbles. The inhomogeneity of the medium results in a substantial reduction of the nucleation barrier for critical bubbles. Using the corrected nucleation barrier, we estimate the amount of supercooling for different parameters controlling the phase transition, and briefly discuss its implications to cosmology and heavy-ion collisions.
122335370
Transverse energy distributions in participant number model for ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions
The transverse energy distribution in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions has been obtained as a convolution over the number of projectile and target participants. The latter is computed using the geometrical overlap model as a function of impact parameter. The data from 10 A GeV to 200 A GeV heavy ion beams on various targets in different pseudo-rapidity domains have been successfully described.