118502088
The Sound of the Little Bangs
Measurements of particles emitted from collisions of heavy ions at relativistic energies show evidence for temperature-fluctuations on the freeze-out surface of the expanding fireball. These can be understood as remnants of the density inhomogeneities in the initial collision overlap region. In this paper we present an analysis of heavy-ion collisions analogous to the analysis of the cosmic microwave background radiation. We use data on transverse momentum correlations to extract a power-spectrum from heavy-ion collisions and use a Glauber model for eccentricity to extract the transfer function needed to produce the observed correlations. We also discuss the acoustic signal, the sound that an observer inside the matter would hear.
118574179
Beam energy dependence of Elliptic and Triangular flow with the AMPT model
Abstract A beam energy scan has been carried out at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory to search for the onset of deconfinement and a possible critical point where the transition from a Quark Gluon Plasma to a hadronic phase changes from a rapid cross-over to a first order phase transition. Anisotropy in the azimuthal distribution of produced particles such as the second and third harmonics v 2 and v 3 are expected to be sensitive to the existence of a Quark Gluon Plasma phase and the Equation of State of the system. For this reason, they are of great experimental interests. In this Letter we report on calculations of v 2 and v 3 from the AMPT model in the Default (Def.) and String Melting (SM) mode to provide a reference for the energy dependence of v 2 and v 3 for s NN from 7.7 GeV to 2.76 TeV. We expect that in the case that collisions cease to produce QGP at lower colliding energies, data will deviate from the AMPT String Melting calculations and come in better agreement with the Default calculations.
119402907
Suppression of nonphotonic electrons from enhancement of charm baryons in heavy ion collisions
In Au+Au collisions at 2<p{sub T}<6 GeV/c baryon production is enhanced compared to p+p collisions. Since charm baryon decays produce electrons less frequently than charm meson decays, the nonphotonic electron spectrum is sensitive to the {lambda}{sub c}/D ratio. In this report we study the dependence of the nonphotonic electron spectrum on the baryon-to-meson ratio for charm hadrons. As an example, we take the {lambda}{sub c}/D ratio to have the same form as the {lambda}/K{sub S}{sup 0} ratio. In this case, even if the total charm quark yield in Au+Au collisions scales with the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions (N{sub bin}), the electron spectrum at 2<p{sub T}<5 GeV/c is suppressed by as much as 20% relative to N{sub bin} scaled p+p collisions.
36758350
Highlights from Heavy Ion Collisions at RHIC and the Acoustics of the Little Bangs
At the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, heavy nuclei are collided at high energies to create matter that is hot enough and dense enough to dissolve hadrons into a quark-gluon-plasma (QGP). In this lecture, dedicated to the memory of Aditya Sambamurti, I present an introduction to heavy-ion collisions and highlights from the first decade of RHIC results.
118478180
Implications of space–momentum correlations and geometric fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions
The standard picture of heavy-ion collisions includes a collective expansion. If the initial energy density in the collisions is lumpy, then the expansion can convert the spatial lumpiness into correlations between final-state particles. Correlations in heavy-ion collisions show prominent features not present in p+p collisions. I argue that many features of these correlations are related to the transference of over-densities from the initial overlap region into momentum–space during the QGP phase of the expansion. I show results from a toy Monte Carlo model to illustrate the consequences of lumpy initial conditions and a collective expansion.
125578392
Azimuthal anisotropy of K0(S) and Lambda + anti-Lambda production at mid-rapidity from Au + Au collisions at S(NN)**(1/2) = 130-GeV
12143325
Constraints on Jupiters from observations of Galactic Bulge microlensing events during 2000.
We present observations of 8 Galactic Bulge microlensing events taken with the 1.0m JKT on La Palma during 2000 June and July. The JKT observing schedule was optimized using a prioritizing algorithm to automatically update the target list. For most of these events we have sampled the lightcurves at times where no information was available from the OGLE alert team. We assume a point-source point-lens (PSPL) model and perform a maximum likelihood fit to both our data and the OGLE data to constrain the event parameters of the fit. We then refit the data assuming a binary lens and proceed to calculate the probability of detecting planets with mass ratio q = 10 3 . We have seen no clear signatures of planetary deviations on any of the 8 events and we quantify constraints on the presence of planetary companions to the lensing stars. For two well observed events, 2000BUL31 and 2000BUL33, our detection probabilities
119106969
A coherent understanding of low-energy nuclear recoils in liquid xenon
Liquid xenon detectors such as XENON10 and XENON100 obtain a significant fraction of their sensitivity to light (10 GeV) particle dark matter by looking for nuclear recoils of only a few keV, just above the detector threshold. Yet in this energy regime a correct treatment of the detector threshold and resolution remains unclear. The energy dependence of the scintillation yield of liquid xenon for nuclear recoils also bears heavily on detector sensitivity, yet numerous measurements have not succeeded in obtaining concordant results. In this article we show that the ratio of detected ionization to scintillation can be leveraged to constrain the scintillation yield. We also present a rigorous treatment of liquid xenon detector threshold and energy resolution. Notably, the effective energy resolution differs significantly from a simple Poisson distribution. We conclude with a calculation of dark matter exclusion limits, and show that existing data from liquid xenon detectors strongly constrain recent interpretations of light dark matter.
119103405
Low-energy (<10keV) electron ionization and recombination model for a liquid argon detector
Abstract Detailed understanding of the ionization process in noble liquid detectors is important for their use in applications such as the search for dark matter and coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering. The response of noble liquid detectors to low-energy ionization events is poorly understood at this time. We describe a new simulation tool which predicts the ionization yield from electronic energy deposits ( E 10 keV ) in liquid Ar, including the dependence of the yield on the applied electric drift field. The ionization signal produced in a liquid argon detector from 37Ar beta decay and 55Fe X-rays has been calculated using the new model.
118494907
Importance of upgraded energy reconstruction for direct dark matter searches with liquid xenon detectors
The usual nuclear recoil energy reconstruction employed by liquid xenon dark matter search experiments relies only on the primary scintillation photon signal. Energy reconstruction based on both the photon and electron signals yields a more accurate representation of search results. For a dark matter particle mass m~10 GeV, a nuclear recoil from a scattering event is more likely to be observed in the lower left corner of the typical search box, rather than near the nuclear recoil calibration centroid. In this region of the search box, the actual nuclear recoil energies are smaller than the usual energy scale suggests, by about a factor x2. Recent search results from the XENON100 experiment are discussed in light of these considerations.
118466778
Towards energy resolution at the statistical limit from a negative ion time projection chamber
Abstract We make a proof-of-principle demonstration that improved energy resolution can be obtained in a negative-ion time projection chamber, by individually counting each electron produced by ionizing radiation.