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Particle physics is living it’s golden age: petabytes of high precision data are being recorded at experimental facilities such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Despite the significant theoretical progress achieved in the last years the complete understanding of the internal structure of protons, not computable with perturbative QCD, remains as one of the most challenging unsolved problems in the physics of elementary interactions. Besides its fundamental interest, pinning down the relevant degrees of freedom and their properties, such as their spatial distribution, has profound implications in several phenomenological aspects of high-energy collisions. Currently one of the subjects undergoing intense study is the possibility that droplets of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) are being created not only in heavy ion collisions but in more dilute systems such as high-multiplicity proton-proton interactions. This is a data driven debate as it is rooted in the similar patterns observed across the different collision systems at the LHC (p+p,p+Pb and Pb+Pb) in the flow harmonic analyses: one of the golden probes of QGP formation specially sensitive to the initial collision geometry. Another domain in which the proton structure plays a central role is the description of multi-parton interactions, the mechanism that dominates the underlying event at LHC energies, in Monte Carlo event generators. All in all a precise characterization of the hadronic structure is a crucial ingredient of the physics program of the LHC.
A full characterization of a hadron would require momentum, spatial and spin information, the so-called Wigner distribution. So far obtaining this information experimentally has not been achieved. From a theoretical point of view several complications arise such as non-universality and breaking of factorization theorems. Then, in general, the description of the hadron structure relies on phenomenological tools that require theoretical modeling constrained by experimental data. The main goal of this thesis to characterize the transverse structure of the proton. For that purpose, a wide variety of phenomenological problems that are sensitive to the proton structure have been addressed.
First, elastic scattering data on proton-proton interactions constitutes a powerful probe of the geometry of the collision. A dedicated analysis of this observable focusing on the extraction of the inelasticity density from it at √s=62.5 GeV and √s=7 TeV is presented. In the TeV regime, a unexpected phenomenon, dubbed the hollowness effect, arises: the inelasticity density, a measurement of how effective is the collision producing secondary particles, reaches its maximum at non-zero impact parameter. We provide the first dynamical explanation of the hollowness effect by constructing the elastic scattering amplitude in impact parameter representation according to the Glauber model. For that purpose we relied on a composite description of the proton. More concretely, the relevant degrees of freedom that participate in the scattering process were considered to be gluonic hot spots. The probability distribution for the transverse positions of hot spots inside the proton includes repulsive short-range correlations between all pairs of hot spots controlled by an effective repulsive core rc that effectively enlarges the mean transverse separation distance between them. The main results extracted from this work are as follows. To begin with, we found that our model was not able to describe a growing behavior of the inelasticity density at zero impact parameter in the absence of non-trivial spatial correlations. However, even in the presence of correlations, the emergence of the hollowness effect couldn’t be described when the number of hot spots was smaller than 3. Both features set solid constraints in the proton structure within our model. Finally, we pinpoint the transverse diffusion of the hot spots with increasing collision energy to be the dynamical mechanism underlying the onset of the hollowness effect.
A convenient playground to test further implications of this novel geometric description of the proton are the initial state properties of high energy proton-proton interactions in the context of QGP physics. The parametrization of the geometry of the collision is mandatory in any theoretical model attempting to describe the striking experimental results that suggest collective behavior in proton-proton interactions at the LHC, such as the non-zero value of the flow harmonic coefficients (vn). A quantitative way to characterize the initial geometry anisotropy of the overlap region is to compute the spatial eccentricity moments (εn) that fluctuate on an event by event basis. For that purpose we develop a Monte Carlo Glauber event generator. A systematic investigation of the effect of non-trivial spatial correlations in the spatial eccentricity moments from ISR to LHC energies within our Monte Carlo Glauber approach is presented. We found that both the eccentricity (ε2) and the triangularity (ε3) are affected by the inclusion of short-range repulsive correlations. In particular, the correlated scenario yielded larger values of ε2(3) in ultra-central collisions while reducing them in minimum bias.
Moreover, we explore not only the eccentricities mean but their fluctuations in terms of symmetric cumulants. The experimental measurement by the CMS Collaboration at √s=13 TeV indicates a anti-correlation of v2 and v3 around the same number of tracks in the three collision systems available at the LHC. We lay out, for the first time in the literature, a particular mechanism that permits an anti-correlation of ε2 and ε3 in the highest centrality bins as dictated by data. 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. Further, we perform a systematic investigation of the parameter space of the model i.e. radius of the hot spot, radius of the proton, repulsive core and number of hot spots in each proton. Our results suggest that the interplay of the different scales is decisive and confirm the discriminating power of this observable on initial state models. Together with their drastic impact on the description of the hollowness effect and the absolute values of the eccentricities, the symmetric cumulant study adds evidence to the fact that the inclusion of spatial correlations between the sub nucleonic degrees of freedom of the proton modifies the initial state properties of p+p interactions at LHC energies.
In the field of strongly correlated electron systems, there is a long standing discussion on whether lattice degrees of freedom play a role for several physical phenomena, among them the Mott MI transition and charge-ordering transition. Charge-transfer salts of the ..-(BEDT-TTF)2X and (TMTCF)2X families have been revealed as model systemss for the study of the latter phenomena. The (TMTCF)2X salts have been recognized as model systems for studying correlation effects in 1D, while the (BEDT-TTF)-based materials for such studies in 2D. In this work, high-resolution dilatometry experiments were performed in order to address these issues. The main results obtained are summarized below. ...
High-pressure single-crystal to 20 GPa and powder diffraction measurements to 50 GPa, show that the structure of Pb2SnO4 strongly distorts on compression with an elongation of one axis. A structural phase transition occurs between 10 GPa and 12 GPa, with a change of space group from Pbam to Pnam. The resistivity decreases by more than six orders of magnitude when pressure is increased from ambient conditions to 50 GPa. This insulator-to-semiconductor transition is accompanied by a reversible appearance change from transparent to opaque. Density functional theory-based calculations show that at ambient conditions the channels in the structure host the stereochemically-active Pb 6s2 lone electron pairs. On compression the lone electron pairs form bonds between Pb2+ ions. Also provided is an assignment of irreducible representations to the experimentally observed Raman bands.
Virtual photon polarization and dilepton anisotropy in relativistic nucleus–nucleus collisions
(2018)
The polarization of virtual photons produced in relativistic nucleus–nucleus collisions provides information on the conditions in the emitting medium. In a hydrodynamic framework, the resulting angular anisotropy of the dilepton final state depends on the flow as well as on the transverse momentum and invariant mass of the photon. We illustrate these effects in dilepton production from quark–antiquark annihilation in the QGP phase and π+π− annihilation in the hadronic phase for a static medium in global equilibrium and for a longitudinally expanding system.
The relativistic treatment of spin is a fundamental subject which has an old history. In various physical contexts it is necessary to separate the relativistic total angular momentum into an orbital and spin contribution. However, such decomposition is affected by ambiguities since one can always redefine the orbital and spin part through the so-called pseudo-gauge transformations. We analyze this problem in detail by discussing the most common choices of energy-momentum and spin tensors with an emphasis on their physical implications, and study the spin vector which is a pseudo-gauge invariant operator. We review the angular momentum decomposition as a crucial ingredient for the formulation of relativistic spin hydrodynamics and quantum kinetic theory with a focus on relativistic nuclear collisions, where spin physics has recently attracted significant attention. Furthermore, we point out the connection between pseudo-gauge transformations and the different definitions of the relativistic center of inertia. Finally, we consider the Einstein–Cartan theory, an extension of conventional general relativity, which allows for a natural definition of the spin tensor.
Hadronic polarization and the related anisotropy of the dilepton angular distribution are studied for the reaction πN→Ne+e−. We employ consistent effective interactions for baryon resonances up to spin-5/2, where non-physical degrees of freedom are eliminated, to compute the anisotropy coefficients for isolated intermediate baryon resonances. It is shown that the spin and parity of the intermediate baryon resonance is reflected in the angular dependence of the anisotropy coefficient. We then compute the anisotropy coefficient including the N(1520) and N(1440) resonances, which are essential at the collision energy of the recent data obtained by the HADES Collaboration on this reaction. We conclude that the anisotropy coefficient provides useful constraints for unraveling the resonance contributions to this process.
We present an extensive experimental study of the recently predicted pygmy quadrupole resonance (PQR) in Sn isotopes, where complementary probes were used. In this study, (α,α' γ ) and (γ , γ') experiments were performed on 124Sn. In both reactions, Jπ = 2+ states below an excitation energy of 5 MeV were populated. The E2 strength integrated over the full transition densities could be extracted from the (γ , γ') experiment, while the (α,α'γ ) experiment at the chosen kinematics strongly favors the excitation of surface modes because of the strong α-particle absorption in the nuclear interior. The excitation of such modes is in accordance with the quadrupole-type oscillation of the neutron skin predicted by a microscopic approach based on self-consistent density functional theory and the quasiparticle-phonon model (QPM). The newly determined γ -decay branching ratios hint at a non-statistical character of the E2 strength, as it has also been recently pointed out for the case of the pygmy dipole resonance (PDR). This allows us to distinguish between PQR-type and multiphonon excitations and, consequently, supports the recent first experimental indications of a PQR in 124Sn.
Die hier vorliegende Arbeit stellt die experimentelle Bestimmung des Verhältnisses R der totalen Wirkungsquerschnitte von Doppel- zu Einfachionisation von Helium vor. Die Ionisation wurde durch Photonen der Energie von etwa 8 keV und 58 keV induziert. In diesem Energiebereich ist die Ionisation sowohl durch die Absorption eines Photons wie auch durch die Compton-Streuung möglich. Die genutzten Photonenenergien erlaubten, den asymptotischen Hochenergiebereich beider Prozesse zu untersuchen. Mit Hilfe der verwandten Methode der Rückstoßionen-Impulsspektroskopie (hier in der neuesten Generation COLTRIMS, nach COLd Target Recoil Ion Momentum Spectroscopy) konnten Photoabsorption und Compton-Streuung erstmals experimentell voneinander getrennt werden. Sie ermöglichte ebenfalls eine gegenüber anderen Meßmethoden deutlich gesteigerte Genauigkeit der Werte R. Die Kinematik der auslaufenden Teilchen unterscheidet sich in beiden Prozessen: In der Absorption überträgt das Photon seine volle Energie auf die Targetelektronen. Deren Impuls im auslaufenden Kanal ist groß gegenüber dem des einlaufenden Photons und muß vom Ion kompensiert werden. Dagegen findet die Streuung des Photons am Elektron statt, das Ion nimmt dabei die Rolle eines Zuschauers ein. Es besitzt im auslaufenden Kanal nur einen geringen Impuls. Die so wohlseparierten Strukturen in der Rückstoßionen-Impulsverteilung erlauben die Trennung beider Prozesse durch COLTRIMS. Das Resultat zur Photoabsorption im Hochenergielimit von Rph = (1.72 ± 0.12) % konnte erstmalig die theoretischen Vorhersagen dieses Wertes verifizieren. Der Wert von Rc = (1.22 ± 0.06) % bei etwa 8.8 keV bestätigt die Rechnung von Andersson und Burgdörfer (Phys. Rev. A50, R2810 (1994)). Das Ergebnis von Rc = (0.84 +0.08-0.11) % bei 58 keV stimmt mit dem für die Compton-Streuung vorhergesagten asymptotischen Grenzwert überein.
We investigate hadronic particle spectra and flow characteristics of heavy-ion reactions in the FAIR/NICA energy range of 1 AGeV ≤ Elab ≤ 10 AGeV within a relativistic ideal hydrodynamic one-fluid approach. The particlization is realized by sampling the Cooper-Frye distribution for a grand canonical hadron gas on a hypersurface of constant energy density. Results of the hydrodynamic calculations for different underlying equations of state are presented and compared with experimental data and microscopic transport simulations. The sensitivity of the approach to physical model inputs concerning the initial state and the particlization is studied.
We want to draw the attention to the dynamics of a (finite) hadronizing quark matter drop. Strange and antistrange quarks do not hadronize at the same time for a baryon-rich system1. Both the hadronic and the quark matter phases enter the strange sector fs 6= 0 of the phase diagram almost immediately, which has up to now been neglected in almost all calculations of the time evolution of the system. Therefore it seems questionable, whether final particle yields reflect the actual thermodynamic properties of the system at a certain stage of the evolution. We put special interest on the possible formation of exotic states, namely strangelets (multistrange quark clusters). They may exist as (meta-)stable exotic isomers of nuclear matter 2. It was speculated that strange matter might exist also as metastable exotic multi-strange (baryonic) objects (MEMO s 3). The possible creation in heavy ion collisions of long-lived remnants of the quark-gluon-plasma, cooled and charged up with strangeness by the emission of pions and kaons, was proposed in 1,4,5. Strangelets can serve as signatures for the creation of a quark gluon plasma. Currently, both at the BNL-AGS and at the CERN-SPS experiments are carried out to search for MEMO s and strangelets, e. g. by the E864, E878 and the NA52 collaborations9,
In the framework of RQMD we investigate antiproton observables in massive heavy ion collisions at AGS energies and compare to preliminary results of the E878 collaboration. We focus here on the considerable influence of the real part of an antinucleon nucleus optical potential on the ¯p momentum spectra. Pacs-numbers: 14.20 Dh, 25.70.-z
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.
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.
We demonstrate that the creation of strange matter is conceivable in the midrapidity region of heavy ion collisions at Brookhaven RHIC and CERN LHC. A finite net-baryon density, abundant (anti)strangeness production, as well as strong net-baryon and net-strangeness fluctuations, provide suitable initial conditions for the formation of strangelets or metastable exotic multistrange ( baryonic) objects. Even at very high initial entropy per baryon SyAinit ¯ 500 and low initial baryon numbers of Ainit B ¯ 30 a quark-gluon-plasma droplet can immediately charge up with strangeness and accumulate net-baryon number. PACS numbers: 25.75.Dw, 12.38.Mh, 24.85.+
We calculate the evolution of quark-gluon-plasma droplets during the hadronization in a thermodynamical model. It is speculated that cooling as well as strangeness enrichment allow for the formation of strangelets even at very high initial entropy per baryon S/Ainit H 500 and low initial baryon numbers of Ainit B H 30. It is shown that the droplet with vanishing initial chemical potential of strange quarks and a very moderate chemical potential of up/down quarks immediately charges up with strangeness. Baryon densi- ties of H 2 0 and strange chemical potentials of µs > 350 MeV are reached if strangelets are stable. The importance of net baryon and net strangeness fluctuations for the possible strangelet formation at RHIC and LHC is em- phasized. Pacs-Classif.: 25.15.tr, 12.38.Mh, 24.85.tp
We present a RQMD calculation of antiproton yields and their momentum distribution in Ne + NaF collisions at 2 GeV/u. The antiprotons can be produced below threshold due to multi-step excitations for which meson-baryon interactions play a considerable role. In this system the annihilation probability for an initially produced antiproton is predicted to be about 65%.
Measured hadron yields from relativistic nuclear collisions can be equally well understood in two physically distinct models, namely a static thermal hadronic source vs. a time-dependent, nonequilibrium hadronization o a quark-gluon plasma droplet. Due to the time-dependent particle evapora- tion o the hadronic surface in the latter approach the hadron ratios change (by factors of <H 5) in time. Final particle yields reflect time averages over the actual thermodynamic properties of the system at a certain stage of the evolution. Calculated hadron, strangelet and (anti-)cluster yields as well as freeze-out times are presented for di erent systems. Due to strangeness distillation the system moves rapidly out of the T, µq plane into the µs-sector. Classif.: 25.75.Dw, 12.38.Mh, 24.85.+p
The deconfinement transition region between hadronic matter and quark-gluon plasma is studied for finite volumes. Assuming simple model equations of state and a first order phase transition, we find that fluctuations in finite volumes hinder a sharp separation between the two phases around the critical temperature, leading to a rounding of the phase transition. For reaction volumes expected in heavy ion experiments, the softening of the equation of state is reduced considerably. This is especially true when the requirement of exact color-singletness is included in the QGP equation of state.
Measured hadron yields from relativistic nuclear collisions can be equally well understood in two physically distinct models, namely a static thermal hadronic source versus a time-dependent, non-equilibrium hadronization off a quark gluon plasma droplet. Due to the time-dependent particle evaporation off the hadronic surface in the latter approach the hadron ratios change (by factors of / 5) in time. The overall particle yields then reflect time averages over the actual thermodynamic properties of the system at a certain stage of evolution.