8181694
THE QCD PHASE DIAGRAM FOR SMALL CHEMICAL POTENTIALS
We compute derivatives of thermodynamic quantities with respect to $\mu$, at $\mu=0$ for 2 and 3 flavors of degenerate quark masses. This allows us to estimate the phase transition line in the $T,\mu$ plane and quantify the influence of a non vanishing chemical potential on the equation of state by computing lines of constant energy, pressure and density. Moreover we evaluate the order of the QCD phase transition by measuring the Binder Cumulant of the chiral condensate. This gives access to the chiral critical point on the phase transition line.
119188644
QCD bulk thermodynamics and conserved charge fluctuations with HISQ fermions
After briefly reviewing recent progress by the HotQCD collaboration in studying the 2+1 flavor QCD equation of state, we will focus on results on fluctuations of conserved charges by the BNL-Bielefeld and HotQCD collaborations. Higher order cumulants of the net-charge distributions are increasingly dominated by a universal scaling behavior, which arises due to a critical point of QCD in the chiral limit. Considering cumulants up to the 6^{th} order, we observe that they generically behave as expected from universal scaling laws, which is quite different from cumulants calculated within the hadron resonance gas model. Taking ratios of these cumulants, we obtain volume independent results that can be compared to the experimental measurements. We will argue that the freeze-out chemical potentials and the freeze-out temperature, usually obtained by a HRG model fit to the measured hadronic yields, can also be obtained in a model independent way from ab-initio lattice QCD calculations by utilizing observables related to conserved charge fluctuations. Further, we will show that the freeze-out strangeness and electric charge chemical potentials can be fixed by imposing strangeness neutrality and isospin asymmetry constraints in the lattice QCD calculations, in order to accommodate conditions met in heavy ion collisions. All results have been obtained with the highly improved staggered quark action (HISQ) and almost physical quark masses on lattices with temporal extent of N_\tau=6,8,10,12. 
After briefly reviewing recent progress by the HotQCD collaboration in studying the 2+1 flavor QCD equation of state, we will focus on results on fluctuations of conserved charges by the BNL-Bielefeld and HotQCD collaborations. Higher order cumulants of the net-charge distributions are increasingly dominated by a universal scaling behavior, which arises due to a critical point of QCD in the chiral limit. Considering cumulants up to the 6(th) order, we observe that they generically behave as expected from universal scaling laws, which is quite different from cumulants calculated within the hadron resonance gas model. Taking ratios of these cumulants, we obtain volume independent results that can be compared to the experimental measurements. We will argue that the freeze-out chemical potentials and the freeze-out temperature, usually obtained by a HRG model fit to the measured hadronic yields, can also be obtained in a model independent way from ab-initio lattice QCD calculations by utilizing observables related to conserved charge fluctuations. Further, we will show that the freeze-out strangeness and electric charge chemical potentials can be fixed by imposing strangeness neutrality and isospin asymmetry constraints in the lattice QCD calculations, in order to accommodate conditions met in heavy ion collisions. All results have been obtained with the highly improved staggered quark action (HISQ) and almost physical quark masses on lattices with temporal extent of N(τ) = 6, 8, 10, 12.
117478307
Chiral restoration and deconfinement in two-color QCD with two flavors of staggered quarks
In preparation of lattice studies of the two-color QCD phase diagram we studychiral restoration and deconfinement at finite temperature with two flavors ofstaggered quarks using an RHMC algorithm on GPUs. We first study unquenchingeffects in local Polyakov loop distributions, and the Polyakov loop potentialobtained via Legendre transformation, in a fixed-scale approach for heavierquarks. We also present the chiral condensate and the correspondingsusceptibility over the lattice coupling across the chiral transition forlighter quarks. Using Ferrenberg-Swendsen reweighting we extract the maxima ofthe chiral susceptibility in order to determine pseudo-critical couplings onvarious lattices suitable for chiral extrapolations. These are then used to fixthe relation between coupling and temperature in the chiral limit.
16120128
Bulk thermodynamics and charge fluctuations at non-vanishing baryon density
We present results on bulk thermodynamic quantities as well as net baryon number, strangeness and electric charge fluctuations in QCD at non-zero density and temperature obtained from lattice calculations with almost physical quark masses for two values of the lattice cut-off aT = 1/4 and 1/6. We show that with our improved p4fa3-action the cut-off effects are under control when using lattices with a temporal extent of 6 or larger and that the contribution to the equation of state, which is due to a finite chemical potential is small for {mu}{sub q}/T < 1. Moreover, at vanishing chemical potential, i.e. under conditions almost realized at RHIC and the LHC, quartic fluctuations of net baryon number and strangeness are large in a narrow temperature interval characterizing the transition region from the low to high temperature phase. At non-zero baryon number density, strangeness fluctuations are enhanced and correlated to fluctuations of the net baryon number. If strangeness is furthermore forced to vanish, as it may be the case in systems created in heavy ion collisions, strangeness fluctuations are significantly smaller than baryon number fluctuations.
15858058
Non-zero density QCD by the Taylor expansion method: The isentropic equation of state, hadronic fluctuations and more
We discuss the Taylor expansion approach to non-zero baryon chemical potential ($\mu_B$) and present results on expanion coefficients of the pressure and energy density up to the 6-th order in $\mu_B$. Calculations have been performed with (2+1)-flavor of improved staggerd fermions (p4fat3) and almost physical masses on lattices with temporal extent of four and six time slices. We use the expansion coefficients to construct the isentropic equation of state on lines of constant entropy per baryon number and various different hadronic fluctuations. Furthermore, we estimate the radius of convegence of our expansion, which can be seen as a method to analyze the structure of the QCD phase diagram.
67814332
An efficient method to compute the residual phase on a Lefschetz thimble
We propose an efficient method to compute the so-called residual phase that appears when performing Monte Carlo calculations on a Lefschetz thimble. The method is stochastic and its cost scales linearly with the physical volume, linearly with the number of stochastic estimators and quadratically with the length of the extra dimension along the gradient flow. This is a drastic improvement over previous estimates of the cost of computing the residual phase. We also report on basic tests of correctness and scaling of the code.
119054771
Diphoton production in gluon fusion at small transverse momentum
Abstract We discuss the production of photon pairs in gluon–gluon scattering in the context of the position-space resummation formalism at small transverse momentum. We derive the remaining unknown coefficients that arise at O (α S ) , as well as the remaining O (α S 2 ) coefficient that occurs in the Sudakov factor. We comment on the impact of these coefficients on the normalization and shape of the resummed transverse momentum distribution of photon pairs, which comprise an important background to Higgs boson production at the LHC.
119495100
QCD phenomenology of charm production at HERA
We compare different schemes for the treatment of heavy quark production in Deep-Inelastic Scattering (DIS). For fully-integrated quantities such as F{sub 2}(x,Q{sup 2}), we advocate the use of the General-Massive Variable-Flavor-Number (GM-VFN) scheme; we present some results showing the progress of a Next-to-Leading Order calculation in this scheme. For differential quantities, the Fixed-Flavor-Number (FFN) scheme provides a more appropriate starting point. We present a new calculation of the azimuthal distribution of charm quark production in DIS. All results have been obtained using a Monte Carlo program under development.
59041279
Commissioning of the Fermilab electron cooler prototype beam line
A prototype of a 4.3-MeV electron cooling system is being assembled at Fermilab as part of the ongoing R&D program in high energy electron cooling. This electron cooler prototype will not demonstrate the actual cooling but it will allow determining if the electron beam properties are suitable for antiproton beam cooling. An electron beam is accelerated by a 5-MV Pelletron (Van de Graaff type) accelerator and transported to a prototype cooling section. The cooling will take place in a 20-m long solenoid flanked on both sides by a delivery and return beam-line - a total of 60 meters of transport channel. This paper describes the first results of commissioning this novel beam line as well as the status of the electron cooling R&D program.
25489712
The AGS Fast Kicker Magnet System
A new fast extraction system from the AGS will be implemented to improve the neutrino beam and to serve for ISABELLE injection. The fast kicker for the system is of an open C-type design with a field strength of 1.25 kG at 2650 amperes. The pulser system is a mismatched, discharge type PFN which is capable of delivering a pulse of 3000 amperes peak current at 30 kV d.c., with a 2.7 ¿sec pulse width, 170 nsec rise time, and flat top ripple within ± 1%. It also serves as a prototype for an ISA injection magnet, and is to be operated in UHV in the 10-11 Torr range. Special measures to achieve this goal are also discussed.
15351369
Charm production in deep inelastic scattering from threshold to high Q2
Charm final states in deep inelastic scattering constitute ~ 25% of the inclusive cross-section at small x as measured at HERA. These data can reveal important information on the charm and gluon structure of the nucleon if they are interpreted in a consistent perturbative QCD framework which is valid over the entire energy range from threshold to the high energy limit. We describe in detail how this can be carried out order-by-order in PQCD in the generalized MSbar formalism of Collins (generally known as the ACOT approach), and demonstrate the inherent smooth transition from the 3-flavor to the 4-flavor scheme in a complete order αs calculation, using a Monte Carlo implementation of this formalism. This calculation is accurate to the same order as the conventional NLO F2 calculation in the limit Q/mc >> 1. It includes the resummed large logarithm contributions of the 3-flavor scheme (generally known in this context as the fixed-flavor-number or FFN scheme) to all orders of αsln (mc2/Q2). For the inclusive structure function, comparison with recent HERA data and the existing FFN calculation reveals that the relatively simple order-αs (NLO) 4-flavor (mc≠0) calculation can, in practice, be extended to rather low energy scales, yielding good agreement with data over the full measured Q2 range. The Monte Carlo implementation also allows the calculation of differential distributions with relevant kinematic cuts. Comparisons with available HERA data show qualitative agreement; however, they also indicate the need to extend the calculation to the next order to obtain better description of the differential distributions.