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Institute
Thermodynamical variables and their time evolution are studied for central relativistic heavy ion collisions from 10.7 to 160 AGeV in the microscopic Ultrarelativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics model (UrQMD). The UrQMD model exhibits drastic deviations from equilibrium during the early high density phase of the collision. Local thermal and chemical equilibration of the hadronic matter seems to be established only at later stages of the quasi-isentropic expansion in the central reaction cell with volume 125 fm 3. Baryon energy spectra in this cell are reproduced by Boltzmann distributions at all collision energies for t > 10 fm/c with a unique rapidly dropping temperature. At these times the equation of state has a simple form: P = (0.12 - 0.15) Epsilon. At SPS energies the strong deviation from chemical equilibrium is found for mesons, especially for pions, even at the late stage of the reaction. The final enhancement of pions is supported by experimental data.
The yields of strange particles are calculated with the UrQMD model for p,Pb(158 AGeV)Pb collisions and compared to experimental data. The yields are enhanced in central collisions if compared to proton induced or peripheral Pb+Pb collisions. The enhancement is due to secondary interactions. Nevertheless, only a reduction of the quark masses or equivalently an increase of the string tension provides an adequate description of the large observed enhancement factors (WA97 and NA49). Furthermore, the yields of unstable strange resonances as the Lambda star(1520) resonance or the phi meson are considerably affected by hadronic rescattering of the decay products.
The hypothesis of local equilibrium (LE) in relativistic heavy ion collisions at energies from AGS to RHIC is checked in the microscopic transport model. We find that kinetic, thermal, and chemical equilibration of the expanding hadronic matter is nearly reached in central collisions at AGS energy for t >_ fm/c in a central cell. At these times the equation of state may be approximated by a simple dependence P ~= (0.12-0.15) epsilon. Increasing deviations of the yields and the energy spectra of hadrons from statistical model values are observed for increasing bombarding energies. The origin of these deviations is traced to the irreversible multiparticle decays of strings and many-body (N >_ 3) decays of resonances. The violations of LE indicate that the matter in the cell reaches a steady state instead of idealized equilibrium. The entropy density in the cell is only about 6% smaller than that of the equilibrium state.
Microscopic calculations of central collisions between heavy nuclei are used to study fragment production and the creation of collective flow. It is shown that the final phase space distributions are compatible with the expectations from a thermally equilibrated source, which in addition exhibits a collective transverse expansion. However, the microscopic analyses of the transient states in the reaction stages of highest density and during the expansion show that the system does not reach global equilibrium. Even if a considerable amount of equilibration is assumed, the connection of the measurable final state to the macroscopic parameters, e.g. the temperature, of the transient "equilibrium" state remains ambiguous.
We analyze the reaction dynamics of central Pb+Pb collisions at 160 GeV/nucleon. First we estimate the energy density pile-up at mid-rapidity and calculate its excitation function: The energy density is decomposed into hadronic and partonic contributions. A detailed analysis of the collision dynamics in the framework of a microscopic transport model shows the importance of partonic degrees of freedom and rescattering of leading (di)quarks in the early phase of the reaction for E >= 30 GeV/nucleon. The energy density reaches up to 4 GeV/fm 3, 95% of which are contained in partonic degrees of freedom. It is shown that cells of hadronic matter, after the early reaction phase, can be viewed as nearly chemically equilibrated. This matter never exceeds energy densities of 0.4 GeV/fm 3, i.e. a density above which the notion of separated hadrons loses its meaning. The final reaction stage is analyzed in terms of hadron ratios, freeze-out distributions and a source analysis for final state pions.
Local kinetic and chemical equilibration is studied for Au+Au collisions at 10.7 AGeV in the microscopic Ultrarelativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics model (UrQMD). The UrQMD model exhibits dramatic deviations from equilibrium during the high density phase of the collision. Thermal and chemical equilibration of the hadronic matter seems to be established in the later stages during a quasiisentropic expansion, observed in the central reaction cell with volume 125 fm3. For t > 10 fm/c the hadron energy spectra in the cell are nicely reproduced by Boltzmann distributions with a common rapidly dropping temperature. Hadron yields change drastically and at the late expansion stage follow closely those of an ideal gas statistical model. The equation of state seems to be simple at late times: P = 0.12 Epsilon. The time evolution of other thermodynamical variables in the cell is also presented.
Equilibrium properties of infinite relativistic hadron matter are investigated using the Ultrarelativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) model. The simulations are performed in a box with periodic boundary conditions. Equilibration times depend critically on energy and baryon densities. Energy spectra of various hadronic species are shown to be isotropic and consistent with a single temperature in equilibrium. The variation of energy density versus temperature shows a Hagedorn-like behavior with a limiting temperature of 130 +/- 10 MeV. Comparison of abundances of different particle species to ideal hadron gas model predictions show good agreement only if detailed balance is implemented for all channels. At low energy densities, high mass resonances are not relevant; however, their importance raises with increasing energy density. The relevance of these different conceptual frameworks for any interpretation of experimental data is questioned.
Ratios of hadronic abundances are analyzed for pp and nucleus-nucleus collisions at sqrt(s)=20 GeV using the microscopic transport model UrQMD. Secondary interactions significantly change the primordial hadronic cocktail of the system. A comparison to data shows a strong dependence on rapidity. Without assuming thermal and chemical equilibrium, predicted hadron yields and ratios agree with many of the data, the few observed discrepancies are discussed.
Enhanced antiproton production in Pb(160 AGeV)+Pb reactions: evidence for quark gluon matter?
(2000)
The centrality dependence of the antiproton per participant ratio is studied in Pb(160 AGeV)+Pb reactions. Antiproton production in collisions of heavy nuclei at the CERN/SPS seems considerably enhanced as compared to conventional hadronic physics, given by the antiproton production rates in pp and antiproton annihilation in p p reactions. This enhancement is consistent with the observation of strong in-medium effects in other hadronic observables and may be an indication of partial restoration of chiral symmetry.
Directed and elliptic flow
(1999)
We compare microscopic transport model calculations to recent data on the directed and elliptic flow of various hadrons in 2 - 10 A GeV Au+Au and Pb (158 A GeV) Pb collisions. For the Au+Au excitation function a transition from the squeeze-out to an in-plane enhanced emission is consistently described with mean field potentials corresponding to one incompressibility. For the Pb (158 A GeV) Pb system the elliptic flow prefers in-plane emission both for protons and pions, the directed flow of protons is opposite to that of the pions, which exhibit anti-flow. Strong directed transverse flow is present for protons and Lambdas in Au (6 A GeV) Au collisions as well. Both for the SPS and the AGS energies the agreement between data and calculations is remarkable.
Quantum Molecular Dynamics (QMD) calculations of central collisions between heavy nuclei are used to study fragment production and the creation of collective flow. It is shown that the final phase space distributions are compatible with the expectations from a thermally equilibrated source, which in addition exhibits a collective transverse expansion. However, the microscopic analyses of the transient states in the intermediate reaction stages show that the event shapes are more complex and that equilibrium is reached only in very special cases but not in event samples which cover a wide range of impact parameters as it is the case in experiments. The basic features of a new molecular dynamics model (UQMD) for heavy ion collisions from the Fermi energy regime up to the highest presently available energies are outlined.
Compelling evidence for the creation of a new form of matter has been claimed to be found in Pb+Pb collisions at SPS. We discuss the uniqueness of often proposed experimental signatures for quark matter formation in relativistic heavy ion collisions. It is demonstrated that so far none of the proposed signals like J/psi meson production/suppression, strangeness enhancement, dileptons, and directed flow unambigiously show that a phase of deconfined matter has been formed in SPS Pb+Pb collisions. We emphasize the need for systematic future measurements to search for simultaneous irregularities in the excitation functions of several observables in order to come close to pinning the properties of hot, dense QCD matter from data.
Dilepton spectra are calculated within the microscopic transport model UrQMD and compared to data from the CERES experiment. The invariant mass spectra in the region between 300 MeV and 600 MeV depend strongly on the mass dependence of the rho meson decay width which is not sufficiently determined by the Vector Meson Dominance model. A consistent explanation of both the recent Pb+Au data and the proton induced data can be given without additional medium effects.
REVTEX, 27 pages incl. 10 figures and 3 tables; Phys. Rev. C (in press) Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. C62 (2000) 064906. We study the local equilibrium in the central V = 125 fm3 cell in heavy-ion collisions at energies from 10.7 A GeV (AGS) to 160 A GeV (SPS) calculated in the microscopic transport model. In the present paper the hadron yields and energy spectra in the cell are compared with those of infinite nuclear matter, as calculated within the same model. The agreement between the spectra in the two systems is established for times t >= 10 fm/c in the central cell. The cell results do not deviate noticeably from the infinite matter calculations with rising incident energy, in contrast to the apparent discrepancy with predictions of the statistical model (SM) of an ideal hadron gas. The entropy of this state is found to be very close to the maximum entropy, while hadron abundances and energy spectra differ significantly from those of the SM.
In this paper, the concepts of microscopic transport theory are introduced and the features and shortcomings of the most commonly used ansatzes are discussed. In particular, the Ultrarelativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) transport model is described in great detail. Based on the same principles as QMD and RQMD, it incorporates a vastly extended collision term with full baryon-antibaryon symmetry, 55 baryon and 32 meson species. Isospin is explicitly treated for all hadrons. The range of applicability stretches from E lab < 100$ MeV/nucleon up to E lab> 200$ GeV/nucleon, allowing for a consistent calculation of excitation functions from the intermediate energy domain up to ultrarelativistic energies. The main physics topics under discussion are stopping, particle production and collective flow.
Dielectron mass spectra are examined for various nuclear reactions recently measured by the DLS collaboration. A detailed description is given of all dilepton channels included in the transport model UrQMD 1.0, i.e. Dalitz decays of π, η, ω, ή mesons and of the (1232) resonance, direct decays of vector mesons and pn bremsstrahlung. The microscopic calculations reproduce data for light systems fairly well, but tend to underestimate the data in pp at high energies and in pd at low energies. These conventional sources, however, cannot explain the recently reported enhancement for nucleus-nucleus collisions in the mass region 0.15GeV ≤ Me+e- ≤ 0.6GeV. Chiral scaling and ω meson broadening in the medium are investigated as a source of this mass excess. They also cannot explain the recent DLS data.
Basic problems of the semiclassical microscopic modelling of strongly interacting systems are discussed within the framework of Quantum Molecular Dynamics (QMD). This model allows to study the influence of several types of nucleonic interactions on a large variety of observables and phenomena occur- ring in heavy ion collisions at relativistic energies. It is shown that the same predictions can be obtained with several numerically completely di erent and independently written programs as far as the same model parameters are employed and the same basic approximations are made. Many observ- ables are robust against variations of the details of the model assumptions used. Some of the physical results, however, depend also on rather technical parameters like the preparation of the initial configuration in phase space. This crucial problem is connected with the description of the ground state of single nuclei, which di ers among the various approaches. An outlook to an improved molecular dynamics scheme for heavy ion collisions is given.
We perform an event-by-event analysis of the transverse momentum distribution of final state particles in central Pb(160AGeV)+Pb collisions within a microscopic non-equilibrium transport model (UrQMD). Strong influence of rescattering is found. The extracted momentum distributions show less fluctuations in A+A collisions than in p+p reactions. This is in contrast to simplified p+p extrapolations and random walk models.
We estimate the energy density epsilon pile-up at mid-rapidity in central Pb+Pb collisions from 2 200 GeV/nucleon. epsilon is decomposed into hadronic and partonic contributions. A detailed analysis of the collision dynamics in the framework of a microscopic transport model shows the importance of partonic degrees of freedom and rescattering of leading (di)quarks in the early phase of the reaction for Elab 30 GeV/nucleon. In Pb+Pb collisions at 160 GeV/nucleon the energy density reaches up to 4 GeV/fm3, 95% of which are contained in partonic degrees of freedom.
We compute bremsstrahlung arising from the acceleration of individual charged baryons and mesons during the time evolution of high-energy Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider using a microscopic transport model. We elucidate the connection between bremsstrahlung and charge stop- ping by colliding artificial pure proton on pure neutron nuclei. From the inten- sity of low energy bremsstrahlung, the time scale and the degree of stopping could be accurately extracted without measuring any hadronic observables. PACS: 25.75.-q, 13.85.Qk
The disappearance of flow
(1995)
We investigate the disappearance of collective flow in the reaction plane in heavy-ion collisions within a microscopic model (QMD). A systematic study of the impact parameter dependence is performed for the system Ca+Ca. The balance energy strongly increases with impact parameter. Momentum dependent interactions reduce the balance energies for intermediate impact parameters b ~ 4.5 fm. Dynamical negative flow is not visible in the laboratory frame but does exist in the contact frame for the heavy system Au+Au. For semi-peripheral collisions of Ca+Ca with b ~ 6.5 fm a new two-component flow is discussed. Azimuthal distributions exhibit strong collectiv flow signals, even at the balance energy.
We investigate hadron production as well as transverse hadron spectra from proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions from 2 A·GeV to 21.3 A·TeV within two independent transport approaches (HSD and UrQMD) that are based on quark, diquark, string and hadronic degrees of freedom. The comparison to experimental data on transverse mass spectra from pp, pA and C+C (or Si+Si) reactions shows the reliability of the transport models for light systems. For central Au+Au (Pb+Pb) collisions at bombarding energies above ~5 A·GeV, furthermore, the measured K± transverse mass spectra have a larger inverse slope parameter than expected from the default calculations. We investigate various scenarios to explore their potential effects on the K± spectra. In particular the initial state Cronin effect is found to play a substantial role at top SPS and RHIC energies. However, the maximum in the K+/..+ ratio at 20 to 30 A·GeV is missed by 40% and the approximately constant slope of the K± spectra at SPS energies is not reproduced either. Our systematic analysis suggests that the additional pressure - as expected from lattice QCD calculations at finite quark chemical potential µq and temperature T- should be generated by strong interactions in the early pre-hadronic/partonic phase of central Au+Au (Pb+Pb) collisions.
Signatures of quark gluon plasma formation in high-energy heavy ion collisions : a critical review
(1998)
Ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions offer the unique opportunity to probe highly excited dense nuclear matter under controlled laboratory conditions. The compelling driving force for such studies is the expectation that an entirely new form of matter may be created from such reactions. That form of matter, called the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), is the QCD analogue of the plasma phase of ordinary atomic matter. However, unlike such ordinary plasmas, the deconfined quanta of a QGP are not directly observable because of the fundamental confining property of the physical QCD vacuum. What is observable are hadronic and leptonic residues of the transient QGP state. There is a large variety of such individual probes.
We study J/psi suppression in AB collisions assuming that the charmonium states evolve from small, color transparent configurations. Their interaction with nucleons and nonequilibrated, secondary hadrons is simulated using the microscopic model UrQMD. The Drell-Yan lepton pair yield and the J/psi Drell-Yan ratio are calculated as a function of the neutral transverse energy in Pb+Pb collisions at 160 GeV and found to be in reasonable agreement with existing data.
We study J/psi suppression in AB collisions assuming that the charmonium states evolve from small, color transparent configurations. Their interaction with nucleons and nonequilibrated, secondary hadrons is simulated us- ing the microscopic model UrQMD. The Drell-Yan lepton pair yield and the J/psi /Drell-Yan ratio are calculated as a function of the neutral transverse en- ergy in Pb+Pb collisions at 160 GeV and found to be in reasonable agreement with existing data.
Noneequilibrium models (three-fluid hydrodynamics and UrQMD) use to discuss the uniqueness of often proposed experimental signatures for quark matter formation in relativistic heavy ion collisions. It is demonstrated that these two models - although they do treat the most interesting early phase of the collisions quite differently(thermalizing QGP vs. coherent color fields with virtual particles) - both yields a reasonable agreement with a large variety of the available heavy ion data.
The behavior of hadronic matter at high baryon densities is studied within Ultrarelativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (URQMD). Baryonic stopping is observed for Au+Au collisions from SIS up to SPS energies. The excitation function of flow shows strong sensitivities to the underlying equation of state (EOS), allowing for systematic studies of the EOS. Dilepton spectra are calculated with and without shifting the rho pole. Except for S+Au collisions our calculations reproduce the CERES data.
The behavior of hadronic matter at high baryon densities is studied within Ultrarelativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (URQMD). Baryonic stopping is observed for Au+Au collisions from SIS up to SPS energies. The excitation function of flow shows strong sensitivities to the underlying equation of state (EOS), allowing for systematic studies of the EOS. Effects of a density dependent pole of the rho-meson propagator on dilepton spectra are studied for different systems and centralities at CERN energies.
We analyze the hadronic freeze-out in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC in a transport approach which combines hydrodynamics for the early, dense, deconfined stage of the reaction with a microscopic non-equilibrium model for the later hadronic stage at which the hydrodynamic equilibrium assumptions are not valid. With this ansatz we are able to self-consistently calculate the freeze-out of the system and determine space-time hypersurfaces for individual hadron species. The space-time domains of the freeze-out for several hadron species are found to be actually four-dimensional, and di er drastically for the individual hadrons species. Freeze-out radii distributions are similar in width for most hadron species, even though the is found to be emitted rather close to the phase boundary and shows the smallest freeze- out radii and times among all baryon species. The total lifetime of the system does not change by more than 10% when going from SPS to RHIC energies.
We discuss a model for the space-time evolution of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions which employs relativistic hydrodynamics within one region of the forward light-cone, and microscopic transport theory (i.e. UrQMD) in the complement. Our initial condition consists of a quark-gluon plasma which expands hydrodynamically and hadronizes. After hadronization the solution eventually changes from expansion in local equilibrium to free streaming, as determined selfconsistently by the interaction rates between the hadrons and the local expansion rate. We show that in such a scenario the inverse slopes of the mT -spectra of multiple strange baryons ( Xi,Omega) are practically una ected by the purely hadronic stage of the reaction, while the flow of p's and Lambda's increases. Moreover, we find that the rather soft transverse expansion at RHIC energies (due to a first-order phase transition) is not washed out by strong rescattering in the hadronic stage. The earlier kinetic freeze-out as compared to SPS-energies results in similar inverse slopes (of the mT -spectra of the hadrons in the final state) at RHIC and SPS energies.
We calculate the Gaussian radius parameters of the pion-emitting source in high energy heavy ion collisions, assuming a first order phase transition from a thermalized Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) to a gas of hadrons. Such a model leads to a very long-lived dissipative hadronic rescattering phase which dominates the properties of the two-pion correlation functions. The radii are found to depend only weakly on the thermalization time tau i, the critical temperature T c (and thus the latent heat), and the specific entropy of the QGP. The dissipative hadronic stage enforces large variations of the pion emission times around the mean. Therefore, the model calculations suggest a rapid increase of R out/R side as a function of K T if a thermalized QGP were formed.
We study the thermodynamic properties of infinite nuclear matter with the Ultrarelativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (URQMD), a semiclassical transport model, running in a box with periodic boundary conditions. It appears that the energy density rises faster than T4 at high temperatures of T approx. 200 - 300 MeV. This indicates an increase in the number of degrees of freedom. Moreover, We have calculated direct photon production in Pb+Pb collisions at 160 GeV/u within this model. The direct photon slope from the microscopic calculation equals that from a hydrodynamical calculation without a phase transition in the equation of state of the photon source.
Nonequilibrium models (three-fluid hydrodynamics, UrQMD, and quark molecular dynamics) are used to discuss the uniqueness of often proposed experimental signatures for quark matter formation in relativistic heavy ion collisions from the SPS via RHIC to LHC. It is demonstrated that these models - although they do treat the most interesting early phase of the collisions quite differently (thermalizing QGP vs. coherent color fields with virtual particles) -- all yield a reasonable agreement with a large variety of the available heavy ion data. Hadron/hyperon yields, including J/Psi meson production/suppression, strange matter formation, dileptons, and directed flow (bounce-off and squeeze-out) are investigated. Observations of interesting phenomena in dense matter are reported. However, we emphasize the need for systematic future measurements to search for simultaneous irregularities in the excitation functions of several observables in order to come close to pinning the properties of hot, dense QCD matter from data. The role of future experiments with the STAR and ALICE detectors is pointed out.
Direct photon production in central Pb+Pb collisions at CERN-SPS energy is calculated within the relativistic microscopic transport model UrQMD, and within distinctly di erent versions of relativistic hydrodynamics. We find that in UrQMD the local momentum distributions of the secondaries are strongly elongated along the beam axis initially. Therefore, the preequilibrium contribution dominates the photon spectrum at transverse momenta above H 1.5 GeV. The hydrodynamics prediction of a strong correlation between the temperature and radial expansion velocities on the one hand and the slope of the transverse momentum distribution of direct photons on the other hand thus is not recovered in UrQMD. The rapidity distribution of direct photons in UrQMD reveals that the initial conditions for the longitudinal expansion of the photon source (the meson fluid ) resemble rather boostinvariance than Landau-like flow.
Dissociation rates of J / psi's with comoving mesons : thermal versus nonequilibrium scenario.
(1998)
We study J/psi dissociation processes in hadronic environments. The validity of a thermal meson gas ansatz is tested by confronting it with an alternative, nonequilibrium scenario. Heavy ion collisions are simulated in the frame- work of the microscopic transport model UrQMD, taking into account the production of charmonium states through hard parton-parton interactions and subsequent rescattering with hadrons. The thermal gas and microscopic transport scenarios are shown to be very dissimilar. Estimates of J/psi survival probabilities based on thermal models of comover interactions in heavy ion collisions are therefore not reliable.
A study of secondary Drell-Yan production in nuclear collisions is presented for SPS energies. In addition to the lepton pairs produced in the initial collisions of the projectile and target nucleons, we consider the potentially high dilepton yield from hard valence antiquarks in produced mesons and antibaryons. We calculate the secondary Drell-Yan contributions taking the collision spectrum of hadrons from the microscopic model URQMD. The con- tributions from meson-baryon interactions, small in hadron-nucleus interac- tions, are found to be substantial in nucleus-nucleus collisions at low dilepton masses. Preresonance collisions of partons may further increase the yields.
Charmonium production and absorption in heavy ion collisions is studied with the Ultrarelativisitic Quantum Molecular Dynamics model. We compare the scenario of universal and time independent color-octet dissociation cross sections with one of distinct color-singlet J/psi, psi 2 and CHIc states, evolving from small, color transparent configurations to their asymptotic sizes. The measured J/psi production cross sections in pA and AB collisions at SPS energies are consistent with both purely hadronic scenarios. The predicted rapidity dependence of J/psi suppression can be used to discriminate between the two experimentally. The importance of interactions with secondary hadrons and the applicability of thermal reaction kinetics to J/psi absorption are in- vestigated. We discuss the e ect of nuclear stopping and the role of leading hadrons. The dependence of the 2/J/psi ratio on the model assumptions and the possible influence of refeeding processes is also studied.
We make predictions for the kaon interferometry measurements in Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). A first order phase transition from a thermalized Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) to a gas of hadrons is assumed for the transport calculations. The fraction of kaons that are directly emitted from the phase boundary is considerably enhanced at large transverse momenta K T ~ 1 GeV/c. In this kinematic region, the sensitivity of the R out/R side ratio to the QGP-properties is enlarged. Here, the results of the 1-dimensional correlation analysis are presented. The extracted interferometry radii, depending on K-Theta, are not unusually large and are strongly affected by momentum resolution effects.
We present calculations of two-pion and two-kaon correlation functions in relativistic heavy ion collisions from a relativistic transport model that includes explicitly a first-order phase transition from a thermalized quark-gluon plasma to a hadron gas. We compare the obtained correlation radii with recent data from RHIC. The predicted R_side radii agree with data while the R_out and R_long radii are overestimated. We also address the impact of in-medium modifications, for example, a broadening of the rho-meson, on the correlation radii. In particular, the longitudinal correlation radius R_long is reduced, improving the comparison to data.
Using a microscopic transport model together with a coalescence after-burner, we study the formation of deuterons in Au + Au central collisions at s = 200 AGeV . It is found that the deuteron transverse momentum distributions are strongly a ected by the nucleon space-momentum correlations, at the moment of freeze-out, which are mostly determined by the number of rescatterings. This feature is useful for studying collision dynamics at ultrarelativistic energies.
We calculate the kaon HBT radius parameters for high energy heavy ion collisions, assuming a first order phase transition from a thermalized Quark-Gluon-Plasma to a gas of hadrons. At high transverse momenta K_T ~ 1 GeV/c direct emission from the phase boundary becomes important, the emission duration signal, i.e., the R_out/R_side ratio, and its sensitivity to T_c (and thus to the latent heat of the phase transition) are enlarged. Moreover, the QGP+hadronic rescattering transport model calculations do not yield unusual large radii (R_i<9fm). Finite momentum resolution effects have a strong impact on the extracted HBT parameters (R_i and lambda) as well as on the ratio R_out/R_side.
The microscopic phasespace approach URQMD is used to investigate the stopping power and particle production in heavy systems at SPS and RHIC energies. We find no gap in the baryon rapidity distribution even at RHIC. For CERN energies URQMD shows a pile up of baryons and a supression of multi-nucleon clusters at midrapidity.
Abstract: An accurate impact parameter determination in a heavy ion collision is crucial for almost all further analysis. The capabilities of an artificial neural network are investigated to that respect. A novel input generation for the network is proposed, namely the transverse and longitudinal momentum distribution of all outgoing (or actually detectable) particles. The neural network approach yields an improvement in performance of a factor of two as compared to classical techniques. To achieve this improvement simple network architectures and a 5 × 5 input grid in (pt, pz) space are suffcient.
Triple differential cross sections of pions in heavy ion collisions at 1 GeV/nucl. are studied with the IQMD model. After discussing general properties of resonance and pion production we focus on azimuthal correlations: At projectile- and target-rapidities we observe an anticorrelation in the in-plane transverse momentum between pions and protons. At c.m.-rapidity, however, we find that high pt pions are being preferentially emitted perpendicular to the event-plane. We investigate the causes of those correlations and their sensitivity on the density and momentum dependence of the real and imaginary part of the nucleon and pion optical potential.
We investigate the sensivity of pionic bounce-off and squeeze-out on the density and momentum dependence of the real part of the nucleon optical potential. For the in-plane pion bounce-off we find a strong sensivity on both the density and momentum dependence whereas the out-of-plane pion squeeze-out shows a strong sensivity only towards the momentum dependence but little sensivity towards the density dependence.
The properties of pions from the hot and dense reaction stage of relativistic heavy ion collisions are investigated with the quantum molecular dynamics model. Pions originating from this reaction stage stem from resonance decay with enhanced mass. They carry high transverse momenta. The calculation shows a direct correlation between high pt pions, early freeze-out times and high freeze-out densities.
Azimuthal correlations of pions are studied with the quantum molecular dynamics model. Pions are preferentially emitted perpendicular to the reaction plane. Our analysis shows that this anisotropy is dominated by pion absorption on the spectator matter in the reaction plane. Pions emitted perpendicular to the reaction plane undergo less rescattering than those emitted in the reaction plane and might therefore be more sensitive to the early hot and dense reaction phase.
Accurate impact parameter determination in a heavy-ion collision is crucial for almost all further analysis. We investigate the capabilities of an artificial neural network in that respect. First results show that the neural network is capable of improving the accuracy of the impact parameter determination based on observables such as the flow angle, the average directed inplane transverse momentum and the difference between transverse and longitudinal momenta. However, further investigations are necessary to discover the full potential of the neural network approach.