15920253
Spatial and temporal hadron correlators below and above the chiral phase transition
Hadronic correlation functions at finite temperature in QCD, with four flavours of dynamical quarks, have been analyzed both above and below the chiral symmetry restoration temperature. We have used both point and extended sources for spatial as well as temporal correlators. The effect of periodic temporal boundary conditions for the valence quarks on the spatial meson correlators has also been investigated. All our results are consistent with the existence of individual quarks at high temperatures. A measurement of the residual interaction between the quarks is presented.
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.
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.
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.
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.
120756008
Supercooling in viscous hydrodynamics for QCD phase transition
First order quark hadron phase transition is considered in scaling hydrodynamics including the Csernai-Kapusta model of nucleation of hadronic bubbles leading to supercooling. The effect of viscosity on the entropy production is studied in ideal as well as in viscous hydrodynamics with and without supercooling. It is found that the excess entropy produced due to supercooling depends weakly on viscosity.
118904356
Multiplicity distributions of intermediate mass fragments in the thermodynamic model
Multiplicity distributions of intermediate mass fragments (IMFs) seen in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions have been of great interest in the last ten years. The distributions of single intermediate sized elements are close to Poissonian and have been subjected to widely different physical interpretations. We calculate the multiplicity distributions in a thermodynamic model whose physical basis is equal populations in phase space, which implies equilibrium statistics. We found distributions of a single element are to a good approximation Poissonian, and this result is attributed to the small emission probability of a given IMF among all the possible channels. We also found significant deviation from a Poisson distribution for a range of IMFs, and suggest strong correlations as an explanation. The systematics of the multiplicity distributions are explored in both one-component and two-component models. In the one-component model, sudden changes for the multiplicity distributions are found at the phase transition region. In the two-component model, the multiplicity distributions have more subtleties. Results from the current model are compared with available data, and good agreements are found. New signals for the multiparticle correlations are also suggested.
117748187
Nonlinear Hadron Couplings from Divergence Conditions. II. varrho Mesons, Pions, and Nucleons
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.
14302099
Right-chiral sneutrinos and long-lived staus: Event characteristics at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
We investigate the signals of a supersymmetric scenario where the lighter tau-sneutrino is the lightest supersymmetric particle, while the lighter stau-state is the next lightest. We confirm that such a scenario can be motivated within the framework of minimal supergravity, with just the addition of a right-chiral neutrino superfield. Such a spectrum leads to rather unusual signals of supersymmetry, showing stable tracks of the stau in the muon chambers. We have studied two types of signals, namely (a) two or more hard jets and two stau tracks, and (b) hard jets with two muons and two stau tracks. We demonstrate that the stau tracks can be distinguished from the muonic ones through proper kinematic cuts which also enable one to remove all standard model backgrounds.