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Institute
The outer segment of vertebrate photoreceptors is a specialized compartment that hosts all the signaling components required for visual transduction. Specific to rod photoreceptors is an unusual set of three glutamic acid-rich proteins (GARPs) as follows: two soluble forms, GARP1 and GARP2, and the N-terminal cytoplasmic domain (GARP′ part) of the B1 subunit of the cyclic GMP-gated channel. GARPs have been shown to interact with proteins at the rim of the disc membrane. Here we characterized native GARP1 and GARP2 purified from bovine rod photoreceptors. Amino acid sequence analysis of GARPs revealed structural features typical of “natively unfolded” proteins. By using biophysical techniques, including size-exclusion chromatography, dynamic light scattering, NMR spectroscopy, and circular dichroism, we showed that GARPs indeed exhibit a large degree of intrinsic disorder. Analytical ultracentrifugation and chemical cross-linking showed that GARPs exist in a monomer/multimer equilibrium. The results suggested that the function of GARP proteins is linked to their structural disorder. They may provide flexible spacers or linkers tethering the cyclic GMP-gated channel in the plasma membrane to peripherin at the disc rim to produce a stack of rings of these protein complexes along the long axis of the outer segment. GARP proteins could then provide the environment needed for protein interactions in the rim region of discs.
Dilatometric studies on single crystalline barlowite – a structurally perfect spin-1/2 Kagome system
(2015)
We present results of high-resolution thermal expansion measurements on single crystalline barlowite – a structurally perfect spin-1/2 kagome system. The data reveal strongly pronounced and anisotropic second-order phase transition anomalies at the Néel transition at TN = 16K. From these data, together with literature results on the specific heat, the uniaxial-pressure dependences of TN are derived. We find a rather large positive pressure coefficient for uniaxial pressure along the hexagonal c axis of ∂TN/∂pc = (2.3 ± 0.2) K/GPa and smaller negative in-plane pressure coefficient of ∂TN/∂pin-plane = -(0.6 ± 0.03) K/GPa. These effects result in a small positive pressure coefficient under hydrostatic-pressure conditions of ∂TN/∂phydr = (1.1 ± 0.2) K/GPa. Bond-lengths considerations indicate that inter-layer Cu-O bonds, being larger than those typically found in stable Cu-O complexes, are responsible for this behavior.
The extrapolation of results obtained on a series of 3 succeeding grids with halved mesh size is tested as a variant of the multigrid approach for solving the Laplace and Poisson equations in 2D. Based on corresponding experience with BEM for electric and magnetic [2] field problems a pure power law is applied instead of the famous Richardson extrapolation [3]. On those grid points, which are common to all 3 grids, the potential values are extrapolated to an arbitrary fine discretization. On the points of the finest grid in between those of the coarser ones the potentials then are obtained by only few iterations to perform the interpolation. Both, the common 5-point discretization and the famous 9-point discretization by E. Kasper [5] are investigated and compared with respect to the possible win of accuracy by extrapolation. As an interesting result of this kind of extrapolation, the accumulated local discretization errors of the 5-point discretization are partially cured and the high accuracy by the 9-point formula of Kasper makes extrapolation inefficient. Like for classical MG (multi grid) [6] the acceleration of potential calculations on grids of large size is substantial.
Twenty years ago, on February 10, 2000, the CERN Director General Luciano Maiani announced: The combined data coming from the seven experiments on CERN’s Heavy Ion programme have given a clear picture of a new state of matter. This result verifies an important prediction of the present theory of fundamental forces between quarks. This report briefly reviews studies of the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter with relativistic nuclear collisions at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron which followed the CERN’s press release on the quark-gluon plasma discovery. An attempt to formulate priorities for future measurements at the CERN SPS closes the paper. The report is dedicated to David Blaschke who celebrated his 60th birthday in 2019. David’s contribution to the studies presented here was very significant.
We study issues of duality in 3D field theory models over a canonical noncommutative spacetime and obtain the noncommutative extension of the self-dual model induced by the Seiberg–Witten map. We apply the dual projection technique to uncover some properties of the noncommutative Maxwell–Chern–Simons theory up to first-order in the noncommutative parameter. A duality between this theory and a model similar to the ordinary self-dual model is established. The correspondence of the basic fields is obtained and the equivalence of algebras and equations of motion are directly verified. We also comment on previous results in this subject.
The gauge principle is fundamental in formulating the Standard Model. Fermion–gauge-boson couplings are the inescapable consequence and the primary determining factor for observable phenomena. Vertices describing such couplings are simple in perturbation theory and yet the existence of strong-interaction bound-states guarantees that many phenomena within the Model are nonperturbative. It is therefore crucial to understand how dynamics dresses the vertices and thereby fundamentally alters the appearance of fermion–gauge-boson interactions. We consider the coupling of a dressed-fermion to an Abelian gauge boson, and describe a unified treatment and solution of the familiar longitudinal Ward–Green–Takahashi identity and its less well known transverse counterparts. Novel consequences for the dressed-fermion–gauge-boson vertex are exposed.
We perform a study of the possible existence of hybrid stars with color superconducting quark cores using a specific hadronic model in a combination with an NJL-type quark model. It is shown that the constituent mass of the non-strange quarks in vacuum is a very important parameter that controls the beginning of the hadron–quark phase transition. At relatively small values of the mass, the first quark phase that appears is the two-flavor color superconducting (2SC) phase which, at larger densities, is replaced by the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase. At large values of the mass, on the other hand, the phase transition goes from the hadronic phase directly into the CFL phase avoiding the 2SC phase. It appears, however, that the only stable hybrid stars obtained are those with the 2SC quark cores.
We compute the fermion spin distribution in the vortical fluid created in off-central high energy heavy-ion collisions. We employ the event-by-event (3+1)D viscous hydrodynamic model. The spin polarization density is proportional to the local fluid vorticity in quantum kinetic theory. As a result of strong collectivity, the spatial distribution of the local vorticity on the freeze-out hyper-surface strongly correlates to the rapidity and azimuthal angle distribution of fermion spins. We investigate the sensitivity of the local polarization to the initial fluid velocity in the hydrodynamic model and compute the global polarization of Λ hyperons by the AMPT model. The energy dependence of the global polarization agrees with the STAR data.
We present a systematic study on the influence of spatial correlations between the proton constituents, in our case gluonic hot spots, their size and their number on the symmetric cumulant SC(2,3), at the eccentricity level, within a Monte Carlo Glauber framework [J.L. Albacete, H. Petersen, A. Soto-Ontoso, Symmetric cumulants as a probe of the proton substructure at LHC energies, Phys. Lett. B778 (2018) 128–136. arXiv:1707.05592, doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2018.01.011]. When modeling the proton as composed by 3 gluonic hot spots, the most common assumption in the literature, we find that the inclusion of spatial correlations is indispensable to reproduce the negative sign of SC(2,3) in the highest centrality bins as dictated by data. Further, the subtle interplay between the different scales of the problem is discussed. To conclude, the possibility of feeding a 2+1D viscous hydrodynamic simulation with our entropy profiles is exposed.
In this work, largely based on [J. L. Albacete, A. Soto-Ontoso, Hot spots and the hollowness of proton-proton interactions at high energies, arXiv:1605.09176; J. L. Albacete, H. Petersen, A. Soto-Ontoso, Correlated wounded hot spots in proton-proton interactions, arXiv:1612.06274], we present a novel initial state geometry for proton-proton interactions. We rely on gluonic hot spots as effective degrees of freedom whose transverse positions inside the proton are correlated. We explore the impact of these non-trivial spatial correlations on the eccentricity and triangularity of the system following a Monte Carlo Glauber approach.
Microscopic transport approaches are the tool to describe the non-equilibrium evolution in low energy collisions as well as in the late dilute stages of high-energy collisions. Here, a newly developed hadronic transport approach, SMASH (Simulating Many Accelerated Strongly-interacting Hadrons) is introduced. The overall bulk dynamics in low energy heavy ion collisions is shown including the excitation function of elliptic flow employing several equations of state. The implications of this new approach for dilepton production are discussed and preliminary results for afterburner calculations at the highest RHIC energy are presented and compared to previous UrQMD results. A detailed understanding of a hadron gas with vacuum properties is required to establish the baseline for the exploration of the transition to the quark-gluon plasma in heavy ion collisions at high net baryon densities.
As the density of matter increases, atomic nuclei disintegrate into nucleons and, eventually, the nucleons themselves disintegrate into quarks. The phase transitions (PT's) between these phases can vary from steep first order to smooth crossovers, depending on certain conditions. First-order PT's with more than one globally conserved charge, so-called non-congruent PT's, have characteristic differences compared to congruent PT's. In this conference proceeding we discuss the non-congruence of the quark deconfinement PT at high densities and/or temperatures relevant for heavy-ion collisions, neutron stars, proto-neutron stars, supernova explosions, and compact-star mergers.
Previous experimental measurements from nuclear collisions have indicated modifications of jets by interaction with the medium created in the collision. Observables from particle correlations in the ALICE detector continue to provide access to key properties of the hot deconfined nuclear matter. New results from two- and three-particle number and transverse momentum correlations are discussed. Specifically, correlation function properties are characterized as a function of transverse momentum and centrality and for different charge combinations. Fourier decompositions are performed, identified particle ratios are studied in the jet-like peak and in the bulk, and the away-side shape is looked at in three-particle correlations.
We study the production of the light JPC=1−+ hybrid isoscalars η1′(1855) and the yet undiscovered η1(1660) as intermediate states in the radiative decays of the charmonium (J/ψ) to two conventional mesons using a flavor symmetric Lagrangian. For this purpose, we use the J/ψ→γη1′(1855)→γηη′ process as the reference. We find that some of the decay channels have branching ratios similar to or larger than that of the γηη′ channel and are sensitive to the mixing between the hybrid isoscalars. We propose that relatively stable γηf1(1285) channel be explored for the presence of the light hybrid isoscalar η1hyb(1660). We also exploit the strong decay channels containing at least one vector meson to study the radiative decays of the whole hybrid nonet {π1(1600),K1hyb(1750),η1hyb(1660),η1′(1855)}. We find that the hybrids cannot radiatively decay into the I=0 pseudoscalars. Furthermore, the vector decay channels ((ρ/ω/ϕ)γ) of the hybrid isoscalars are sensitive to the strangeness content of the hybrids. We also provide estimates for the branching fractions for the radiative production and partial widths for the radiative decays of the hybrids.
Vibrational energy transfer (VET) is essential for protein function. It is responsible for efficient energy dissipation in reaction sites, and has been linked to pathways of allosteric communication. While it is understood that VET occurs via backbone as well as via non-covalent contacts, little is known about the competition of these two transport channels, which determines the VET pathways. To tackle this problem, we equipped the β-hairpin fold of a tryptophan zipper with pairs of non-canonical amino acids, one serving as a VET injector and one as a VET sensor in a femtosecond pump probe experiment. Accompanying extensive non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations combined with a master equation analysis unravel the VET pathways. Our joint experimental/computational endeavor reveals the efficiency of backbone vs. contact transport, showing that even if cutting short backbone stretches of only 3 to 4 amino acids in a protein, hydrogen bonds are the dominant VET pathway.
In high multiplicity nucleus-nucleus collisions baryon-antibaryon annihilation and regeneration occur during the final hadronic expansion phase, thus distorting the initial equilibrium multiplicity ratios. We quantify the modifications employing the hybrid UrQMD transport model and apply them to the grand canonical partition functions of the Statistical Hadronization Model(SHM). We analyze minimum bias and central Pb+Pb collision data at SPS and LHC energy. We explain the Pion to Proton ratio puzzle. We also reproduce the deuteron to proton ratio at LHC energy by the SHM, and by UrQMD after attaching a phase space coalescence process. We discuss the resulting (T,μB) diagram.
The core of neutron stars consists of extremely dense matter at relatively low temperatures. In such an environment the appearance of exotic strongly interacting particles beyond nucleons appears quite natural. In this context we consider hybrid stars that, in addition to nucleons and hyperons, also contain quarks as further degrees of freedom. We investigate the impact of quarks on the properties of these compact stars. In addition, we discuss new constraints on such objects arising from the recently measured gravitational wave signal of two merging neutron stars.
HADES is a multi-purpose charged-particle detector operated at the SIS18 synchrotron located at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany. The provided ion beam energies of 1-2 A GeV are the lowest of all currently running heavy-ion experiments and result in the highest baryo-chemical potentials at freeze-out in case of Au+Au collisions. At this Quark Matter conference we presented results from Au+Au collisions at sNN=2.4GeV. The created system exhibits a very clear hierarchy in hadron yields, with about 100 protons, 10 pions, 10−2 kaons and 10−4 antikaons per event. The HADES program focuses on four main observables: (subthreshold) strangeness production, particle flow and its anisotropies, virtual photon emission and net-proton number fluctuations.
In this paper a new method of experimental data analysis, the Particle-Set Identification method, is presented. The method allows to reconstruct moments of multiplicity distribution of identified particles. The difficulty the method copes with is due to incomplete particle identification – a particle mass is frequently determined with a resolution which does not allow for a unique determination of the particle type. Within this method the moments of order k are calculated from mean multiplicities of k-particle sets of a given type. The Particle-Set Identification method remains valid even in the case of correlations between mass measurements for different particles. This distinguishes it from the Identity method introduced by us previously to solve the problem of incomplete particle identification in studies of particle fluctuations.
Experimental and theoretical studies of fluctuations in nucleus-nucleus interactions at high energies have started to play a major role in understanding of the concept of strong interactions. The elaborated procedures have been developed to disentangle different processes happening during nucleus-nucleus collisions. The fluctuations caused by a variation of the number of nucleons which participated in a collision are frequently considered the unwanted one. The methods to reduce the impact of these fluctuations in fixed-target experiments are reviewed and tested. They can be of key importance in the following ongoing fixed-target heavy-ion experiments: NA61/SHINE at the CERN SPS, STAR-FXT at the BNL RHIC, BMN at JINR Nuclotron, HADES at the GSI SIS18 and in future experiments such as NA60+ at the CERN SPS, CBM at the FAIR SIS100, JHITS at J-PARC-HI MR.
The production of low-mass dielectrons is one of the most promising tools for the investigation of chiral symmetry restoration and thermal radiation from the QGP created in heavy-ion collisions. To single out the signal characteristics of the QGP, it is crucial to understand the primordial e+e− pair production in vacuum, i.e. in inelastic proton-proton (pp) collisions. Low-mass dielectrons have been measured with ALICE at the LHC in pp collisions at s=7and13TeV, and in Pb–Pb collisions at sNN=2.76TeV. An overview of the results on dielectron production is presented, together with their implications for the direct-photon and heavy-quark production.
QCD matter physics at FAIR
(2017)
The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment will be one of the major scientific pillars of the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Darmstadt. The goal of the CBM research program is to explore the QCD phase diagram in the region of high baryon densities using high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. This includes the study of the equation-of-state of nuclear matter at neutron star core densities, and the search for the deconfinement and chiral phase transitions. The CBM detector is designed to measure rare diagnostic probes such as hadrons including multi-strange (anti-) hyperons, lepton pairs, and charmed particles with unprecedented precision and statistics. Most of these particles will be studied for the first time in the FAIR energy range. In order to achieve the required precision, the measurements will be performed at very high reaction rates of 1 to 10 MHz. This requires very fast and radiation-hard detectors, a novel data read-out and analysis concept based on free streaming front-end electronics, and a high-performance computing cluster for online event selection. The status of FAIR and the physics program of the proposed CBM experiment will be discussed.
The colour-singlet axial-vector vertex plays a pivotal role in understanding dynamical chiral symmetry breaking and numerous hadronic weak interactions, yet scant model-independent information is available. We therefore use longitudinal and transverse Ward–Green–Takahashi (WGT) identities, together with kinematic constraints, in order to ameliorate this situation and expose novel features of the axial vertex: amongst them, Ward-like identities for elements in the transverse piece of the vertex, which complement and shed new light on identities determined previously for components in its longitudinal part. Such algebraic results are verified via solutions of the Bethe–Salpeter equation for the axial vertex obtained using two materially different kernels for the relevant Dyson–Schwinger equations. The solutions also provide insights that suggest a practical Ansatz for the axial-vector vertex.
We investigate the ratios βη≡η/τπ and βζ≡ζ/τΠ, i.e., the ratios of shear, η, and bulk, ζ, viscosities to the relaxation times τπ, τΠ of the shear stress tensor and bulk viscous pressure, respectively, in the framework of causal relativistic dissipative fluid dynamics. These viscous transport coefficients are computed both in a field-theoretical and a kinetic approach based on the Boltzmann equation. Our results differ from those of the traditional Boltzmann calculation by Israel and Stewart. The new expressions for the viscous transport coefficients agree with the results obtained in the field-theoretical approach when the contributions from pair annihilation and creation (PAC) are neglected. The latter induce non-negligible corrections to the viscous transport coefficients.
The pion-to-proton ratio is identified as a potential signal for a non-equilibrium first-order chiral phase transition in heavy-ion collisions, as the pion multiplicity is directly related to entropy production. To showcase this effect, a non-equilibrium Bjorken expansion starting from realistic initial conditions along a Taub adiabat is used to simulate the entropy production. Different dynamical criteria to determine the final entropy-per-baryon number are investigated and matched to a hadron resonance gas model along the chemical freeze out curve to obtain the final pion and proton numbers. We detect a strong enhancement of their multiplicity ratio at the energies where the system experiences a strong phase transition as compared to a smooth crossover which shows almost no enhancement.
We present predictions for the pseudorapidity dependence of the azimuthal anisotropy parameters v1 and v2 of baryons and inclusive charged hadrons in Pb + Pb collisions at a LHC energy of sNN=5.5 TeV applying a microscopic transport model, namely the quark–gluon string model (QGSM) which has been recently extended for parton rearrangement and fusion processes. Pb + Pb collisions with impact parameters b=2.3 fm and b=8 fm have been simulated in order to investigate additionally the difference between central and semiperipheral configurations. In contrast to v1ch(η) at RHIC, the directed flow of charged hadrons shows a small normal flow alignment. The elliptic flow v2ch(η) turns out to be rather similar in shape for RHIC and LHC conditions, the magnitude however increases about 10–20% at the LHC, leading to the conclusion that the hydrodynamical limit will be reached.
We construct a set of hyperonic equations of state (EoS) by assuming SU(3) symmetry within the baryon octet and by using a covariant density functional (CDF) theory approach. The low-density regions of our EoS are constrained by terrestrial experiments, while the high-density regime is modeled by systematically varying the nuclear matter skewness coefficient Qsat and the symmetry energy slope Lsym. The sensitivity of the EoS predictions is explored in terms of z parameter of the SU(3) symmetric model that modifies the meson-hyperon coupling constants away from their SU(6) symmetric values. Our results show that model EoS based on our approach can support static Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkof (TOV) masses in the range 2.3-2.5M⊙ in the large-Qsat and small-z regime, however, such stars contain only a trace amount of hyperons compared to SU(6) models. We also construct uniformly rotating Keplerian configurations for our model EoS for which the masses of stellar sequences may reach up to 3.0M⊙. These results are used to explore the systematic dependence of the ratio of maximum masses of rotating and static stars, the lower bound on the rotational frequency of the models that will allow secondary masses in the gravitational waves events to be compact stars with M2≲3.0M⊙ and the strangeness fraction on the model parameters. We conclude that very massive stellar models can be, in principle, constructed within the SU(3) symmetric model, however, they are nucleonic-like as their strangeness fraction drops below 3%.
ϕ-meson production in In–In collisions at Elab=158A GeV: Evidence for relics of a thermal phase
(2010)
Yields and transverse mass distributions of the ϕ-mesons reconstructed in the ϕ→μ+μ− channel in In+In collisions at Elab=158A GeV are calculated within an integrated Boltzmann+hydrodynamics hybrid approach based on the Ultrarelativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) transport model with an intermediate hydrodynamic stage. The analysis is performed for various centralities and a comparison with the corresponding NA60 data in the muon channel is presented. We find that the hybrid model, that embeds an intermediate locally equilibrated phase subsequently mapped into the transport dynamics according to thermal phase-space distributions, gives a good description of the experimental data, both in yield and slope. On the contrary, the pure transport model calculations tend to fail in catching the general properties of the ϕ meson production: not only the yield, but also the slope of the mT spectra, compare poorly with the experimental observations at top SPS energies.
Recent data of the HADES Collaboration in Au+Au central collisions at sNN=2.4 GeV indicate large proton number fluctuations inside one unit of rapidity around midrapidity. This can be a signature of critical phenomena due to the strong attractive interactions between baryons. We study an alternative hypothesis that these large fluctuations are caused by the event-by-event fluctuations of the number of bare protons, and no interactions between these protons are assumed. The proton number fluctuations in five symmetric rapidity intervals Δy inside the region ΔY=1 are calculated using the binomial acceptance procedure. This procedure assumes the independent (uncorrelated) emission of protons, and it appears to be in agreement with the HADES data. To check this simple picture we suggest to calculate the correlation between proton multiplicities in non-overlapping rapidity intervals Δy1 and Δy2 placed inside ΔY=1.
We point out that the variance of net-baryon distribution normalized by the Skellam distribution baseline, κ2[B−B¯]/〈B+B¯〉, is sensitive to the possible modification of (anti)baryon yields due to BB¯ annihilation in the hadronic phase. The corresponding measurements can thus place stringent limits on the magnitude of the BB¯ annihilation and its inverse reaction. We perform Monte Carlo simulations of the hadronic phase in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC via the recently developed subensemble sampler + UrQMD afterburner and show that the effect survives in net-proton fluctuations, which are directly accessible experimentally. The available experimental data of the ALICE Collaboration on net-proton fluctuations disfavors a notable suppression of (anti)baryon yields in BB¯ annihilations predicted by the present version of UrQMD if only global baryon conservation is incorporated. On the other hand, the annihilations improve the data description when local baryon conservation is imposed. The two effects can be disentangled by measuring κ2[B+B¯]/〈B+B¯〉, which at the LHC is notably suppressed by annihilations but virtually unaffected by baryon number conservation.
We study the decays of the JPC=1−+ hybrid nonet using a Lagrangian invariant under the flavor symmetry, parity reversal, and charge conjugation. We use the available experimental data, the lattice predictions, and the flavor constraints to evaluate the coupling strengths of the π1(1600) to various two-body mesonic states. Using these coupling constants, we estimate the partial widths of the two-body decays of the hybrid pion, kaon and the isoscalars. We find that the hybrid kaon can be nearly as broad as the π1(1600). Quite remarkably, we find also that the light isoscalar must be significantly narrow while the width of the heavy isoscalar can be matched to the recently observed η1(1855).
The QCD equation of state at finite baryon density is studied in the framework of a Cluster Expansion Model (CEM), which is based on the fugacity expansion of the net baryon density. The CEM uses the two leading Fourier coefficients, obtained from lattice simulations at imaginary μB, as the only model input and permits a closed analytic form. Excellent description of the available lattice data at both μB = 0 and at imaginary μB is obtained. We also demonstrate how the Fourier coefficients can be reconstructed from baryon number susceptibilities.
The centrality dependence of the p/π ratio measured by the ALICE Collaboration in 5.02 TeV Pb-Pb collisions indicates a statistically significant suppression with the increase of the charged particle multiplicity once the centrality-correlated part of the systematic uncertainty is eliminated from the data. We argue that this behavior can be attributed to baryon annihilation in the hadronic phase. By implementing the BB¯↔5π reaction within a generalized partial chemical equilibrium framework, we estimate the annihilation freeze-out temperature at different centralities, which decreases with increasing charged particle multiplicity and yields Tann=132±5 MeV in 0-5% most central collisions. This value is considerably below the hadronization temperature of Thad∼160 MeV but above the thermal (kinetic) freeze-out temperature of Tkin∼100 MeV. Baryon annihilation reactions thus remain relevant in the initial stage of the hadronic phase but freeze out before (pseudo-)elastic hadronic scatterings. One experimentally testable consequence of this picture is a suppression of various light nuclei to proton ratios in central collisions of heavy ions.
In this paper, we present the repercussions of Padmanabhan's propagator in electrodynamics. This corresponds to implement T-duality effects in a U(1) gauge theory. By formulating a nonlocal action consistent with the above hypothesis, we derive the profile of static potentials between electric charges via a path integral approach. Interestingly, the Coulomb potential results regularized by a length scale proportional to the parameter (α′)1/2. Accordingly, fields are vanishing at the origin. We also discuss an array of experimental testbeds to expose the above results. It is interesting to observe that T-duality generates an effect of dimensional fractalization, that resembles similar phenomena in fractional electromagnetism. Finally, our results have also been derived with a gauge-invariant method, as a necessary check of consistency for any non-Maxwellian theory.
Multichannel decay law
(2022)
It is well known, both theoretically and experimentally, that the survival probability for an unstable quantum state, formed at t=0, is not a simple exponential function, even if the latter is a good approximation for intermediate times. Typically, unstable quantum states/particles can decay in more than a single decay channel. In this work, the general expression for the probability that an unstable state decays into a certain i-th channel between the initial time t=0 and an arbitrary t>0 is provided, both for nonrelativistic quantum states and for relativistic particles. These partial decay probabilities are also not exponential and their ratio turns out to be not a simple constant, as it would be in the exponential limit. Quite remarkably, these deviations may last relatively long, thus making them potentially interesting in applications. Thus, multichannel decays represent a promising and yet unexplored framework to search for deviations from the exponential decay law in quantum mechanical systems, such as quantum tunneling, and in the context of particle decays.
We explore the parameter space of the two-flavor thermal quark–meson model and its Polyakov loop-extended version under the influence of a constant external magnetic field B. We investigate the behavior of the pseudo critical temperature for chiral symmetry breaking taking into account the likely dependence of two parameters on the magnetic field: the Yukawa quark–meson coupling and the parameter T0 of the Polyakov loop potential. Under the constraints that magnetic catalysis is realized at zero temperature and the chiral transition at B=0 is a crossover, we find that the quark–meson model leads to thermal magnetic catalysis for the whole allowed parameter space, in contrast to the present picture stemming from lattice QCD.
We review the properties of the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma (QGP) at finite temperature T and baryon chemical potential µB as created in heavy-ion collisions at ultrarelativistic energies. The description of the strongly interacting (non-perturbative) QGP in equilibrium is based on the effective propagators and couplings from the Dynamical QuasiParticle Model (DQPM) that is matched to reproduce the equation-of-state of the partonic system above the deconfinement temperature Tc from lattice QCD. Based on a microscopic transport description of heavy-ion collisions, we discuss which observables are sensitive to the QGP creation and its properties.
We use a simple hard-core gas model to study the dynamics of small exploding systems. The system is initially prepared in a thermalized state in a spherical container and then allowed to expand freely into the vacuum. We follow the expansion dynamics by recording the coordinates and velocities of all particles until their last collision points (freeze-out). We have found that the entropy per particle calculated for the ensemble of freeze-out points is very close to the initial value. This is in apparent contradiction with the Joule experiment in which the entropy grows when the gas expands irreversibly into a larger volume.
We study the effect of the chiral symmetry restoration (CSR) on heavy-ion collisions observables in the energy range sNN=3–20GeV within the Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach. The PHSD includes the deconfinement phase transition as well as essential aspects of CSR in the dense and hot hadronic medium, which are incorporated in the Schwinger mechanism for particle production. Our systematic studies show that chiral symmetry restoration plays a crucial role in the description of heavy-ion collisions at sNN=3–20GeV, realizing an increase of the hadronic particle production in the strangeness sector with respect to the non-strange one. Our results provide a microscopic explanation for the horn structure in the excitation function of the K+/π+ ratio: the CSR in the hadronic phase produces the steep increase of this particle ratio up to sNN≈7GeV, while the drop at higher energies is associated to the appearance of a deconfined partonic medium. Furthermore, the appearance/disappearance of the horn structure is investigated as a function of the system size. We additionally present an analysis of strangeness production in the (T,μB)-plane (as extracted from the PHSD for central Au+Au collisions) and discuss the perspectives to identify a possible critical point in the phase diagram.
Dilepton production in pp and Au+Au nucleus–nucleus collisions at s=200GeV as well as in In+In and Pb+Au at 158AGeV is studied within the microscopic HSD transport approach. A comparison to the data from the PHENIX Collaboration at RHIC shows that standard in-medium effects of the ρ,ω vector mesons—compatible with the NA60 data for In+In at 158AGeV and the CERES data for Pb+Au at 158AGeV—do not explain the large enhancement observed in the invariant mass regime from 0.2 to 0.5 GeV in Au+Au collisions at s=200 GeV relative to pp collisions.
Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurde ein verbessertes Buncher-System für Hochfrequenzbeschleuniger mit niedrigem und mittlerem Ionenstrom entwickelt. Die entwickelte Methodik hat ermöglicht, ein effektives, vereinfachtes Buncher-System für die Injektion in HF-Beschleuniger wie RFQs, Zyklotrons, DTLs usw. zu entwerfen, welches kleine Ausgangsemittanzen und beträchtliche Strahltransmissionen erzielt. Um einen mono-energetischen und kontinuierlichen Strahl aus einer Ionenquelle für den Einschuss in eine Hochfrequenz-Beschleunigerstruktur anzupassen, wird eine Energiemodulation benötigt, die im weiteren Verlauf (Driftstrecke) zur Längsfokussierung des Strahls führt. Durch eine Sägezahnwellenform wird die ideale Energiemodulation aufgrund der linearen Abhängigkeit zwischen der Energie der Teilchen und ihren relativen Phasen erreicht. Dies ist jedoch technologisch nicht möglich, da Teilchenbeschleuniger Spannungsniveaus im Bereich kV bis 100 kV benötigen. Dagegen ist für eine solche Zielsetzung eine räumliche Trennung der sinusförmigen Anregung mit der Grundfrequenz und höheren Harmonischen möglich.
Daher wurde in dieser Arbeit ein verbesserter harmonischer Buncher, der sogenannte „Double Drift Harmonic Buncher - DDHB“ entwickelt, welcher zahlreiche Vorteile hat. Eine geringe longitudinale Emittanz sowie finanzielle Aspekte sprechen für diesen Lösungsansatz. Die Hauptelemente eines DDHB Systems sind zwei Kavitäten, die durch eine Driftlänge L1 getrennt sind, wobei der erste Resonator mit der Grundfrequenz bei -90° synchroner Phase und angelegter Spannung V1 und der zweite Resonator bei der zweiten harmonischen Frequenz mit +90 synchroner Phase und angelegter Spannung V2 betrieben werden. Schließlich ist eine zweite Drift L2 am Ende des Arrays für eine longitudinale Strahlfokussierung am Hauptbeschleunigereingang erforderlich. Somit erfüllt ein solcher Aufbau das angestrebte Ziel einer hohen Einfangseffizienz und einer kleinen longitudinalen Emittanz durch Anpassen der vier Designparameter V1, L1, V2 und L2.
Das Verständnis der Fokussierung, ausgehend von einem Gleichstromstrahl, einschließlich der Raumladungskräfte, ist einer der wesentlichen Bestandteile der Strahlphysik. Viele kommerzielle Codes bieten Simulationsmöglichkeiten in diesem Anwendungsbereich. Ihre Ansätze bleiben jedoch dem Anwender meist verborgen, oder es fehlen wichtige Details zur genauen Abbildung des vorliegenden Konzepts. Daher bestand eine Hauptaufgabe dieser Arbeit darin, einen speziellen Multi-Particle-Tracking-Beam-Dynamics-Code (BCDC) zu entwickeln, bei dem der Raumladungseffekt während des Bunch-Vorgangs, ausgehend von einem DC-Strahl berechnet wird. Der BCDC - Code enthält elementare Routinen wie Drift und Beschleunigungsspalt oder magnetische Linse für die transversale Strahlfokussierung und Raumladungsberechnungen unter Berücksichtigung der Auswirkungen der nächsten Nachbar-Bunche (NNB). Der Raumladungsalgorithmus in BCDC basiert auf einer direkten Coulomb- Gitter-Gitter-Wechselwirkung und Berechnungen des elektrischen Feldes durch Lokalisierung der Ladungsdichte auf einem kartesischen Gitter. Um Genauigkeit zu erreichen, werden die Feldberechnungen in Längsrichtung symmetrisch um das zentrale Bucket (βλ-Größe) erweitert, so dass das Simulationsfeld dreimal so groß ist. Die zentrale Teilchenverteilung wird dann nach jedem Schritt in die benachbarten Buckets kopiert. Anschließend werden die resultierenden Felder im Hauptgitterfeld neu berechnet, indem die elektrischen Felder im Hauptgitterfeld mit denen aus den benachbarten Regionen überlagert werden. Ohne diese Methode würde z. B. ein kontinuierlicher Strahl, welcher jedoch in der Simulation nur innerhalb einer Zelle der Länge βλ definiert ist, zu einer resultierenden Raumladungsfeldkomponente Ez an beiden Rändern der Zelle führen. Ein solches unphysikalisches Ergebnis konnte durch die Anwendung der NNB-Technik bereits weitgehend eliminiert werden. Zusätzlich zum NNB-Feature verfügt das BCDC über eine weitere Besonderheit nämlich die sogenannte Raumladungskompensation (SCC). Aufgrund der Ionisierung des Restgases kommt es entlang des Niederenergiestrahltransports zu einer teilweisen Raumladungskompensation, und zwar am und hinter dem Bunchersystem mit unterschiedlichen Prozentsätzen. Eines der Hauptziele des DDHB-Konzepts besteht darin, es für Hochstromstrahlanwendungen zu entwickeln. Dabei ermöglicht die teilweise Raumladungskompensation, dass das Design in der Praxis höhere Stromniveaus erreicht. Dadurch ist das BCDC-Programm ein leistungsstarkes Werkzeug für Simulationen in künftigen, stromstarken Projekten. Proof-of-Principle-Designs wurden in dieser Arbeit entwickelt.
We study vacuum masses of charmonia and the charm-quark diffusion coefficient in the quark-gluon plasma based on the spectral representation for meson correlators. To calculate the correlators, we solve the quark gap equation and the inhomogeneous Bethe–Salpeter equation in the rainbow-ladder approximation. It is found that the ground-state masses of charmonia in the pseudoscalar, scalar, and vector channels can be well described. For 1.5Tc<T<3.0Tc, the value of the diffusion coefficient D is comparable with that obtained by lattice QCD and experiments: 3.4<2πTD<5.9. Relating the diffusion coefficient with the ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density η/s of the quark-gluon plasma, we obtain values in the range 0.09<η/s<0.16.
We study anisotropic fluid dynamics derived from the Boltzmann equation based on a particular choice for the anisotropic distribution function within a boost-invariant expansion of the fluid in one spatial dimension. In order to close the conservation equations we need to choose an additional moment of the Boltzmann equation. We discuss the influence of this choice of closure on the time evolution of fluid-dynamical variables and search for the best agreement to the solution of the Boltzmann equation in the relaxation-time approximation.
A deep convolutional neural network (CNN) is developed to study symmetry energy (Esym(ρ)) effects by learning the mapping between the symmetry energy and the two-dimensional (transverse momentum and rapidity) distributions of protons and neutrons in heavy-ion collisions. Supervised training is performed with labeled data-set from the ultrarelativistic quantum molecular dynamics (UrQMD) model simulation. It is found that, by using proton spectra on event-by-event basis as input, the accuracy for classifying the soft and stiff Esym(ρ) is about 60% due to large event-by-event fluctuations, while by setting event-summed proton spectra as input, the classification accuracy increases to 98%. The accuracies for 5-label (5 different Esym(ρ)) classification task are about 58% and 72% by using proton and neutron spectra, respectively. For the regression task, the mean absolute errors (MAE) which measure the average magnitude of the absolute differences between the predicted and actual L (the slope parameter of Esym(ρ)) are about 20.4 and 14.8 MeV by using proton and neutron spectra, respectively. Fingerprints of the density-dependent nuclear symmetry energy on the transverse momentum and rapidity distributions of protons and neutrons can be identified by convolutional neural network algorithm.
The production of strange pentaquark states (e.g., Theta baryons and Ξ−− states) in hadronic interactions within a Gribov–Regge approach is explored. In this approach the Θ+(1540) and the Ξ are produced by disintegration of remnants formed by the exchange of pomerons between the two protons. We predict the rapidity and transverse momentum distributions as well as the 4π multiplicity of the Θ+, Ξ−−, Ξ−, Ξ0 and Ξ+ for s=17 GeV (SPS) and 200 GeV (RHIC). For both energies more than 10−3 Θ+ and more than 10−5 Ξ per pp event should be observed by the present experiments.
Within a dynamical quark recombination model, we explore various proposed event-by-event observables sensitive to the microscopic structure of the QCD-matter created at RHIC energies. Charge ratio fluctuations, charge transfer fluctuations and baryon-strangeness correlations are computed from a sample of central Au + Au events at the highest RHIC energy available (sNN=200 GeV). We find that for all explored observables, the calculations yield the values predicted for a quark–gluon plasma only at early times of the evolution, whereas the final state approaches the values expected for a hadronic gas. We argue that the recombination-like hadronization process itself is responsible for the disappearance of the predicted deconfinement signals. This might explain why no fluctuation signatures for the transition between quark and hadronic matter was ever observed in the experimental data up to now.
The ALICE detector is ideally suited to study the production of anti- and hyper-matter due to its excellent particle identification capabilities. The measurement of the He¯4-nucleus in Pb–Pb collisons at sNN=2.76TeV is presented. We further show the performance for the reconstruction of the (anti-)hypertriton in the decay to He3+π− (He¯3+π+). In addition to this, two searches have been performed, one for the H-Dibaryon →Λpπ− and one for the Λn bound state (Λn¯→d¯π+). No signals are observed for these exotic states and upper limits have been determined.
The production of light neutral mesons in AA collisions probes the physics of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), which is formed in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. More specifically, the centrality dependent neutral meson spectra in AA collisions compared to its spectra in minimum-bias pp collisions, scaled with the number of hard collisions, provides information on the energy loss of partons traversing the QGP. The measurement allows to test with high precision the predictions of theoretical model calculations. In addition, the decay of the π0 and η mesons are the dominant back- grounds for all direct photon measurements. Therefore, pushing the limits of the precision of neutral meson production is key to learning about the temperature and space-time evolution of the QGP.
In the ALICE experiment neutral mesons can be detected via their decay into two photons. The latter can be reconstructed using the two calorimeters EMCal and PHOS or via conversions in the detector material. The excellent momentum resolution of the conversion photons down to very low pT and the high reconstruction efficiency and triggering capability of calorimeters at high pT, allow us to measure the pT dependent invariant yield of light neutral mesons over a wide kinematic range.
Combining state-of-the-art reconstruction techniques with the high statistics delivered by the LHC in Run 2 gives us the opportunity to enhance the precision of our measurements. In these proceedings, new ALICE run 2 preliminary results for neutral meson production in pp and Pb–Pb collisions at LHC energies are presented.