The quest for the quark–gluon plasma

Rapidity and Energy Dependencies of Temperatures and Volume Extracted from Identified Charged Hadron Spectra in Proton-Proton Collisions at a Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS)

The standard (Bose-Einstein/Fermi-Dirac, or Maxwell-Boltzmann) distribution from the relativistic ideal gas model is used to study the transverse momentum (pT) spectra of identified charged hadrons (π-, π+, K-, K+, p¯, and p) with different rapidities produced in inelastic proton-proton (pp) collisions at a Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). The experimental data measured using the NA61/SHINE Collaboration at the center-of-mass (c.m.) energies s=6.3, 7.7, 8.8, 12.3, and 17.3 GeV are fitted well with the distribution. It is shown that the effective temperature (Teff or T), kinetic freeze-out temperature (T0), and initial temperature (Ti) decrease with the increase in rapidity and increase with the increase in c.m. energy. The kinetic freeze-out volume (V) extracted from the π-, π+, K-, K+, and p¯ spectra decreases with the rapidity and increase with the c.m. energy. The opposite tendency of V, extracted from the p spectra, is observed to be increasing with the rapidity and decreasing with the c.m. energy due to the effect of leading protons.

Determination of the Neutron Skin of ^{208}Pb from Ultrarelativistic Nuclear Collisions

Emergent bulk properties of matter governed by the strong nuclear force give rise to physical phenomena across vastly different scales, ranging from the shape of atomic nuclei to the masses and radii of neutron stars. They can be accessed on Earth by measuring the spatial extent of the outer skin made of neutrons that characterizes the surface of heavy nuclei. The isotope ^{208}Pb, owing to its simple structure and neutron excess, has been in this context the target of many dedicated efforts. Here, we determine the neutron skin from measurements of particle distributions and their collective flow in ^{208}Pb+^{208}Pb collisions at ultrarelativistic energy performed at the Large Hadron Collider, which are mediated by interactions of gluons and thus sensitive to the overall size of the colliding ^{208}Pb ions. By means of state-of-the-art global analysis tools within the hydrodynamic model of heavy-ion collisions, we infer a neutron skin Δr_{np}=0.217±0.058  fm, consistent with nuclear theory predictions, and competitive in accuracy with a recent determination from parity-violating asymmetries in polarized electron scattering. We establish thus a new experimental method to systematically measure neutron distributions in the ground state of atomic nuclei.

Beam Energy Dependence of Fifth- and Sixth-Order Net-Proton Number Fluctuations in Au+Au Collisions at RHIC

We report the beam energy and collision centrality dependence of fifth and sixth order cumulants (C_{5}, C_{6}) and factorial cumulants (κ_{5}, κ_{6}) of net-proton and proton number distributions, from center-of-mass energy (sqrt[s_{NN}]) 3 GeV to 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC. Cumulant ratios of net-proton (taken as proxy for net-baryon) distributions generally follow the hierarchy expected from QCD thermodynamics, except for the case of collisions at 3 GeV. The measured values of C_{6}/C_{2} for 0%-40% centrality collisions show progressively negative trend with decreasing energy, while it is positive for the lowest energy studied. These observed negative signs are consistent with QCD calculations (for baryon chemical potential, μ_{B}≤110  MeV) which contains the crossover transition range. In addition, for energies above 7.7 GeV, the measured proton κ_{n}, within uncertainties, does not support the two-component (Poisson+binomial) shape of proton number distributions that would be expected from a first-order phase transition. Taken in combination, the hyperorder proton number fluctuations suggest that the structure of QCD matter at high baryon density, μ_{B}∼750  MeV at sqrt[s_{NN}]=3  GeV is starkly different from those at vanishing μ_{B}∼24  MeV at sqrt[s_{NN}]=200  GeV and higher collision energies.

Measurements of quarkonium production and polarization in Pb–Pb collisions with ALICE

Quarkonia are excellent probes of deconfinement in heavy-ion collisions. For J/ψ, a bound state of cc¯ quarks, the (re-)generation is found to be the dominant production mechanism at the LHC energies. Production measurements of non-prompt J/ψ, originating from beauty-hadron decays, allow one to access the interaction of beauty-quarks with the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Polarization and spin alignment measurements can be used to investigate the characteristics of the formed medium. Moreover, it has been hypothesized that quarkonium states can be polarized by the strong magnetic field generated in the initial state of the collision and by the large angular momentum of the medium in non-central heavy-ion collisions.

In these proceedings, the measurements of the inclusive, prompt, and non-prompt J/ψ nuclear modification factor RAA in Pb–Pb collisions at √SNN = 5.02 TeV are shown. The measured non-prompt J/ψ fraction extends down to very low pT with a significantly improved precision compared to previous publications. The results from the first publication on the J/ψ polarization with respect to the event-plane in Pb–Pb collisions at √SNN = 5.02 TeV at forward rapidity are presented as well. The results are compared with available calculations.

Plasma-like Description for Elementary and Composite Quantum Particles

Schrödinger noticed in 1952 that a scalar complex wave function can be made real by a gauge transformation. The author showed recently that one real function is also enough to describe matter in the Dirac equation in an arbitrary electromagnetic or Yang–Mills field. This suggests some “symmetry” between positive and negative frequencies and, therefore, particles and antiparticles, so the author previously considered a description of one-particle wave functions as plasma-like collections of a large number of particles and antiparticles. The description has some similarities with Bohmian mechanics. This work offers a criterion for approximation of continuous charge density distributions by discrete ones with quantized charge based on the equality of partial Fourier sums, and an example of such approximation is computed using the homotopy continuation method. An example mathematical model of the description is proposed. The description is also extended to composite particles, such as nucleons or large molecules, regarded as collections including a composite particle and a large number of pairs of elementary particles and antiparticles. While it is not clear if this is a correct description of the reality, it can become a basis of an interesting model or useful picture of quantum mechanics.

On the effect of decoherence on quantum tunnelling

This work proposes a series of quantum experiments that can, at least in principle, allow for examining microscopic mechanisms associated with decoherence. These experiments can be interpreted as a quantum-mechanical version of non-equilibrium mixing between two volumes separated by a thin interface. One of the principal goals of such experiments is in identifying non-equilibrium conditions when time-symmetric laws give way to time-directional, irreversible processes, which are represented by decoherence at the quantum level. The rate of decoherence is suggested to be examined indirectly, with minimal intrusions—this can be achieved by measuring tunnelling rates that, in turn, are affected by decoherence. Decoherence is understood here as a general process that does not involve any significant exchanges of energy and governed by a particular class of the Kraus operators. The present work analyses different regimes of tunnelling in the presence of decoherence and obtains formulae that link the corresponding rates of tunnelling and decoherence under different conditions. It is shown that the effects on tunnelling of intrinsic decoherence and of decoherence due to unitary interactions with the environment are similar but not the same and can be distinguished in experiments.

Transverse Energy Density in High Energy Heavy Ion Collisions

A phenomenological model describing the transverse energy distribution (ET) of nuclear collisions is first studied in detail by fitting it on ET data for O-Pb collisions at √sNN = 200 GeV per nucleon obtained from the NA35 collaboration. Next, the model is used to fit the ET data for Pb-Pb collisions at LHC energies of √sNN = 2.76 TeV per nucleon obtained from the ATLAS collaboration. From the fits, we determine an upper bound for the energy density for Pb-Pb collisions at LHC energies of √sNN = 2.76 TeV per nucleon.

The space-time structure of hadronization in the Lund model

The assumption of linear confinement leads to a proportionality of the energy-momentum and space-time pictures of fragmentation for a simple q q ¯ system in the Lund string model. The hadronization of more complicated systems is more difficult to describe, and in the past only the energy-momentum picture has been implemented. In this article also the space-time picture is worked out, for open and closed multiparton topologies, for junction systems, and for massive quarks. Some first results are presented, for toy systems but in particular for LHC events. The density of hadron production is quantified under different conditions. The (not unexpected) conclusion is that this density can become quite high, and thereby motivate the observed collective behaviour in high-multiplicity p p collisions. The new framework, made available as part of the Pythia event generator, offers a starting point for future model building in a number of respects, such as hadronic rescattering.

Decoding the phase structure of QCD via particle production at high energy

Recent studies based on lattice Monte Carlo simulations of quantum chromodynamics (QCD)-the theory of strong interactions-have demonstrated that at high temperature there is a phase change from confined hadronic matter to a deconfined quark-gluon plasma in which quarks and gluons can travel distances that greatly exceed the size of hadrons. Here we show that the phase structure of such strongly interacting matter can be decoded by analysing particle production in high-energy nuclear collisions within the framework of statistical hadronization, which accounts for the thermal distribution of particle species. Our results represent a phenomenological determination of the location of the phase boundary of strongly interacting matter, and imply quark-hadron duality at this boundary.

Recent highlights from STAR

The Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR) experiment takes advantage of its excellent tracking and particle identification capabilities at mid-rapidity to explore the properties of strongly interacting QCD matter created in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC. The STAR collaboration presented 7 parallel and 2 plenary talks at Strangeness in Quark Matter 2017 and covered various topics including heavy flavor measurements, bulk observables, electro-magnetic probes and the upgrade program. This paper highlights some of the selected results.

Open heavy-flavour measurements with ALICE at the LHC

Heavy quarks are produced in the early stages of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, and their number is preserved throughout the subsequent evolution of the system. Therefore, they constitute ideal probes for characterising the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) medium and for the study of its transport properties. In particular, heavy quarks interact with the partonic constituents of the plasma, losing energy, and are expected to be sensitive to the medium collective motion induced by its hydrodynamical evolution. In pp collisions, the measurement of heavy-flavour hadron production provides a reference for heavyion studies, and allows also testing perturbative QCD calculations in a wide range of collision energies. Similar studies in p-Pb collisions help in disentangling cold nuclear matter effects from modifications induced by the presence of a QGP medium, and are also useful to investigate the possible existence of collective phenomena also in this system. The ALICE detector provides excellent performances in terms of particle identification and vertexing capabilities. Hence, it is fully suited for the reconstruction of charmed mesons and baryons and of electrons from heavy-flavour hadron decays at central rapidity. Furthermore, the ALICE muon spectrometer allows reconstructing heavy-flavour decay muons at forward rapidity. A review of the main ALICE results on open heavy flavour production in pp, p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions is presented. Recent, more differential measurements are also shown, including azimuthal correlations of heavy-flavour particles with charged hadrons in p-Pb collisions, and D-meson tagged-jet production in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions.

Quantum Dynamics of Ultracold Bose Polarons

We analyze the dynamics of Bose polarons in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance between the impurity and host atoms. We compute the radio-frequency absorption spectra for the case when the initial state of the impurity is noninteracting and the final state is strongly interacting with the host atoms. We compare results of different theoretical approaches including a single excitation expansion, a self-consistent T-matrix method, and a time-dependent coherent state approach. Our analysis reveals sharp spectral features arising from metastable states with several Bogoliubov excitations bound to the impurity atom. This surprising result of the interplay of many-body and few-body Efimov type bound state physics can only be obtained by going beyond the commonly used Fröhlich model and including quasiparticle scattering processes. Close to the resonance we find that strong fluctuations lead to a broad, incoherent absorption spectrum where no quasiparticle peak can be assigned.

Symmetric and antisymmetric forms of the Pauli master equation

When applied to matter and antimatter states, the Pauli master equation (PME) may have two forms: time-symmetric, which is conventional, and time-antisymmetric, which is suggested in the present work. The symmetric and antisymmetric forms correspond to symmetric and antisymmetric extensions of thermodynamics from matter to antimatter — this is demonstrated by proving the corresponding H-theorem. The two forms are based on the thermodynamic similarity of matter and antimatter and differ only in the directions of thermodynamic time for matter and antimatter (the same in the time-symmetric case and the opposite in the time-antisymmetric case). We demonstrate that, while the symmetric form of PME predicts an equibalance between matter and antimatter, the antisymmetric form of PME favours full conversion of antimatter into matter. At this stage, it is impossible to make an experimentally justified choice in favour of the symmetric or antisymmetric versions of thermodynamics since we have no experience of thermodynamic properties of macroscopic objects made of antimatter, but experiments of this kind may become possible in the future.

Impact dynamics of granular jets with noncircular cross sections

Using high-speed photography, we investigate two distinct regimes of the impact dynamics of granular jets with noncircular cross sections. In the steady-state regime, we observe the formation of thin granular sheets with anisotropic shapes and show that the degree of anisotropy increases with the aspect ratio of the jet's cross section. Our results illustrate the liquidlike behavior of granular materials during impact and demonstrate that a collective hydrodynamic flow emerges from strongly interacting discrete particles. We discuss the analogy between our experiments and those from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, where similar anisotropic ejecta from a quark-gluon plasma have been observed in heavy-ion impact.

Still water: dead zones and collimated ejecta from the impact of granular jets

When a dense granular jet hits a target, it forms a large dead zone and ejects a highly collimated conical sheet with a well-defined opening angle. Using experiments, simulations, and continuum modeling, we find that this opening angle is insensitive to the precise target shape and the dissipation mechanisms in the flow. We show that this surprising insensitivity arises because dense granular jet impact, though highly dissipative, is nonetheless controlled by the limit of perfect fluid flow.

Hydrodynamic expansion of a strongly interacting fermi-fermi mixture

We report on the expansion of an ultracold Fermi-Fermi mixture of (6)Li and (40)K under conditions of strong interactions controlled via an interspecies Feshbach resonance. We study the expansion of the mixture after release from the trap and, in a narrow magnetic-field range, we observe two phenomena related to hydrodynamic behavior. The common inversion of the aspect ratio is found to be accompanied by a collective effect where both species stick together and expand jointly despite of their widely different masses. Our work constitutes a major experimental step for a controlled investigation of the many-body physics of this novel strongly interacting quantum system.

Physics. Fishing antihypernuclei out of a quark-gluon soup

Rare antimatter hypernuclei can form when an ultrahigh-energy plasma of quarks and gluons cools down.