117486353
Elliptic Flow and Shear Viscosity in a Parton Cascade Approach
Within a parton cascade approach we investigate the scaling of the differential elliptic flow v2(pT ) with eccentricity ex and system size and its sensitivity to finite shear viscosity. A central issue we address here is the relation between v2(pT )/ex and v2(pT )/〈v2〉 scalings, as raised by recent experimental observations. We show that, with the inclusion of a freeze out condition, a cascade approach for a plasma at finite η/s can supply a reliable tool for the description of several observables on elliptic flow such as the breaking of v2(pT )/ex scaling and the persistence of v2(pT )/〈v2〉 scaling. Results are moreover compatible with a coalescence plus fragmentation hadronization mechanism acting at intermediate pT .
119459213
Pentaquark baryon production at the relativistic heavy ion collider
Abstract Production of pentaquark Θ + baryons in central relativistic heavy ion collisions is studied in a kinetic model. Assuming that a quark–gluon plasma is produced in the collisions, we first determine the number of Θ + produced from the quark–gluon plasma using a parton coalescence model, and then take into consideration its production and absorption in subsequent hadronic matter via the reactions K N ↔ Θ , K N ↔ π Θ and π N ↔ K ¯ Θ . We find that although the final Θ + number is affected by hadronic interactions, it remains sensitive to the initial number of Θ + produced from the quark–gluon plasma, particularly in the case of a small Θ + width as imposed by the K + N and K + d scattering data. Because of small baryon chemical potential in the hot dense matter produced in these collisions, the number of produced anti- Θ is only slightly smaller than that of Θ + .
23741379
Effects of symmetry energy on two-nucleon correlation functions in heavy-ion collisions induced by neutron-rich nuclei.
Using an isospin-dependent transport model, we study the effects of nuclear symmetry energy on two-nucleon correlation functions in heavy-ion collisions induced by neutron-rich nuclei. We find that the density dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy affects significantly the nucleon emission times in these collisions, leading to larger values of two-nucleon correlation functions for a symmetry energy that has a stronger density dependence. Two-nucleon correlation functions are thus useful tools for extracting information about the nuclear symmetry energy from heavy-ion collisions.
119263837
Heavy Flavor Suppression: Boltzmann vs Langevin
The propagation of heavy flavor through the quark gluon plasma has been treated commonly within the framework of Langevin dynamics, i.e. assuming the heavy flavor momentum transfer is much smaller than the light one. On the other hand a similar suppression factor RAA has been observed experimentally for light and heavy flavors. We present a thorough study of the approximations involved by Langevin equation by mean of a direct comparison with the full collisional integral within the framework of Boltzmann transport equation. We have compared the results obtained in both approaches which can differ substantially for charm quark leading to quite different values extracted for the heavy quark diffusion coefficient. In the case of bottom quark the approximation appears to be quite reasonable.
119235890
Shear viscosity and chemical equilibration of the QGP
We have investigated, in the frame work of the transport approach, different aspects of the QGP created in Heavy Ion Collisions at RHIC and LHC energies. The shear viscosityhas been calculated by using the Green-Kubo relation at the cascade level. We have compared the numerical results forobtained from the Green-Kubo correlator with the analytical formula in both the Relaxation Time Approximation (RTA) and the Chapman-Enskog approximation (CE). From this comparison we show that in the range of temperature explored in a Heavy Ion collision the RTA underestimates the viscosity by about a factor of 2, while a good agreement is found between the CE approximation and Gree-Kubo relation already at first order of approximation. The agreement with the CE approximation supplies an analytical formula that allows to develop kinetic transport theory at fixed shear viscosity to entropy density ratio, ´/s. We show some results for the build up of anisotropic flows v2 in a transport approach at fixed shear viscosity to entropy density ratio, ´/s. We study the impact of a T-dependent ´/s(T ) on the generation of the elliptic flows at both RHIC and LHC. We show that the transport approach provides, in a unified way, a tool able to naturally describe the v2(pT ) in a wide range of pT , including also the description of the rise and fall and saturation of the v2(pT ) observed at LHC. Finally, we have studied the evolution of the quark-gluon composition employing a Boltzmann-Vlasov transport approach that include: the mean fields dynamics, associated to the quasi-particle model, and the elastic and inelastic collisions for massive quarks and gluons. Following the chemical evolution from an initial gluon dominated plasma we predict a quark dominance close to TC paving the way to an hadronization via quark coalescence.
118564693
Renormalized vs. nonrenormalized chiral transition in a magnetic background
A bstractWe study analytically the chiral phase transition for hot quark matter in presence of a strong magnetic background, focusing on the existence of a critical point at zero baryon chemical potential and nonzero magnetic field. We build up a Ginzburg-Landau effective potential for the chiral condensate at finite temperature, computing the coefficients of the expansion within a chiral quark-meson model. Our conclusion is that the existence of the critical point at finite B is very sensitive to the way the ultraviolet divergences of the model are treated. In particular, we find that after renormalization, no chiral critical point is present in the phase diagram. On the other hand, such a critical point there exists when the ultraviolet divergences are not removed by a proper renormalization of the thermodynamic potential.
125690152
The TOTEM experiment at LHC
The TOTEM experiment is dedicated to the measurement of the total proton-proton cross-section with the luminosity-independent method and the study of elastic and diffractive scattering processes. Two tracking telescopes, T1 and T2, integrated in the CMS detector, cover the pseudo-rapidity region between 3.1 and 6.5 on both sides of the interaction point IP5. The Roman Pot (RP) stations are located at distances of ± 147m and ± 220 m with respect to the interaction point to measure the very forward scattered protons at very small angles. During the LHC technical stop in winter 2010/2011, the TOTEM experiment was completed with the installation of the T1 telescope and the RP stations at ± 147 m. In 2011, the LHC machine provided special optics with the large s* = 90 m, allowing TOTEM to measure the elastic scattering differential cross section, down to the four-momentum transfer squared |t| = 2×10−2 GeV2. Using the optical theorem and extrapolation of the differential cross section to t = 0 (optical point), the total p-p cross section at the LHC energy of √v = 7 TeV could be computed for the first time. The status of the experiment, the performance of the detectors with emphasis on the RPs are described and the first physics results are presented.
44804523
The TOTEM T2 detector at LHC: Track reconstruction algorithm and preliminary measurements
TOTEM is an experiment designed to perform total cross section, elastic scattering, and diffractive dissociation measurements at the LHC. It is made up of elastic detectors set in the tunnel (Roman Pots) and two inelastic telescopes: T1 and T2, located in the same cavern as the CMS experiment.
40642633
Level-3 calorimeter resolution available for the Level-1 and Level-2 CDF triggers
As the Tevatron luminosity increases more sophisticated selections are required to be efficient in selecting rare events from a very huge background. To cope with this problem, CDF has pushed the Level-3 calorimeter algorithm resolutions up to Level-2 and, when possible, at Level-1, increasing efficiency and, at the same time, keeping under control the rates. This strategy increases the purity of the Level-2 and Level-1 samples, produces free-bandwidth that allows to reduce the thresholds. The global effect is an increase of the signal efficiency of important Tevatron Standard Model Higgs search channels (H → WW, ZH, WH). The L2 upgrade improves the cluster finding algorithm, the resolution of the Missing Transverse Energy (MET) and the SUM Transverse Energy (SUMET) calculations. The same Level-2 MET and SUMET improved resolution has been made available to the Level-1 system, exploiting the same hardware used for the Level-2 upgrade. The upgrade is based on the Pulsar board, a general purpose VME board developed at CDF and already used for upgrading both the Level-2 tracking and the Level-2 global decision crate. The Level-2 upgrade has been designed, built, tested and commissioned in six months. It was accepted as the default system for CDF in August 2007. The same Level-2 hardware can be used in such a way to provide the Level-1 calorimeter system of the same MET, SUMET resolution provided to Level-2. While in the upgraded Level-2 system the algorithms are executed in a commercial CPU within the typical Level-2 processing timing of 20 μs, in the upgraded Level-1 system, MET and SUMET are calculated by powerful FPGAs within 5 μs. The Level-1 upgrade is currently ongoing and in commissioning phase.We describe the CDF Level-2 and the new Level-1 calorimeter upgrades, the architecture and the trigger performances, with particular emphasis on a new calorimeter MET_JET-based trigger performances used for CDF Higgs search.
119612329
The TOTEM modular trigger system
Abstract The TOTEM experiment will measure the total cross-section with the luminosity independent method and study elastic and diffractive scattering at the LHC. We are developing a modular trigger system, based on programmable logic, that will select meaningful events within 2.5 μ s . The trigger algorithm is based on a tree structure in order to obtain information compression. The trigger primitive is generated directly on the readout chip, VFAT, that has a specific fast output that gives low resolution hits information. In two of the TOTEM detectors, Roman Pots and T2, a coincidence chip will perform track recognition directly on the detector readout boards, while for T1 the hits are transferred from the VFATs to the trigger hardware. Starting from more than 2000 bits delivered by the detector electronics, we extract, in a first step, six trigger patterns of 32 LVDS signals each; we build, then, on a dedicated board, a 1-bit (L1) trigger signal for the TOTEM experiment and 16 trigger bits to the CMS experiment global trigger system for future common data taking.
22796813
Double diffractive cross-section measurement in the forward region at the LHC.
The first double diffractive cross-section measurement in the very forward region has been carried out by the TOTEM experiment at the LHC with a center-of-mass energy of sqrt[s]=7  TeV. By utilizing the very forward TOTEM tracking detectors T1 and T2, which extend up to |η|=6.5, a clean sample of double diffractive pp events was extracted. From these events, we determined the cross section σDD=(116±25)  μb for events where both diffractive systems have 4.7<|η|min<6.5.