Exploring light nuclei production at RHIC and LHC energies with A Multi-Phase Transport model and a coalescence afterburner

In heavy-ion collisions, understanding how light nuclei species are produced can provide insight into the nature of hadronic interactions in extreme conditions. It can also shed light on understanding the matter-antimatter asymmetry and dark matter searches in astrophysical processes. To investigate the production mechanism of light nuclei such as deuteron, triton, and helium-3, we use a naive coalescence afterburner coupled to the well-known $``$A Multi-Phase Transport model" (AMPT). We focus on studying the production of light nuclei in central Au+Au collisions at different center of mass energies ($\sqrt{s_{_{\rm{NN}}}}$ = 19.6, 39, and 200 GeV) and in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm{NN}}}}$ = 2.76 TeV, at mid-rapidity. We generate events with the string melting version of AMPT, and feed the information of the nucleons with spatial and momentum conditions into the coalescence afterburner. Our study reports differential and integrated yields in transverse momentum ($p_{\rm{T}}$) of the light nuclei in different center of mass energies. We also estimate the coalescence parameters ($B_A$) as a function of $p_{\rm{T}}$ and collision energy for (anti-)deuterons, tritons and helium-3s for Au+Au and Pb+Pb collisions, which are compared to other light nuclei production studies. All results are compared with measurements from the STAR and ALICE experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Anisotropic flow of charged and identified hadrons at FAIR energies and its dependence on the nuclear equation of state

In this article, we examine the equation of state (EoS) dependence of the anisotropic flow parameters ($v_{1}$, $v_{2}$ and $v_{4}$) of charged and identified hadrons, as a function of transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$), rapidity ($y_{c.m.}$) and the incident beam energy ($\rm E_{\rm Lab}$) in mid-central Au + Au collisions in the energy range $\rm E_{\rm Lab} = 6 -25$ A GeV. Simulations are carried out by employing different variants of the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) model, namely the pure transport (cascade) mode and the hybrid mode. In the hybrid mode, transport calculations are coupled with the ideal hydrodynamical evolution. Within the hydrodynamic scenario, two different equations of state (EoS) viz. Hadron gas and Chiral + deconfinement EoS have been employed separately to possibly mimic the hadronic and partonic scenarios, respectively. It is observed that the flow parameters are sensitive to the onset of hydrodynamic expansion of the fireball in comparison to the pure transport approach. The results would be useful as predictions for the upcoming low energy experiments at Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) and Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility (NICA).Comment: Accepted in European Physical Journal

Effect of various particlization scenarios on anisotropic flow and particle production using UrQMD hybrid model

We discuss the effect of various particlization scenarios available in the hybrid ultrarelativistic quantum molecular dynamics (UrQMD) event generator on different observables in non-central ($b$ $=$ 5--9 $fm$) Au + Au collisions in the beam energy range 1A-158A GeV. Particlization models switch fluid dynamic description to the transport description using various hypersurface criteria. In addition to particlization models, various equations-of-state (EoS) provided by the UrQMD hybrid model were employed. The observables examined in this paper include the excitation function of anisotropic coefficients such as directed ($v_{1}$) and elliptic flow ($v_{2}$), particle ratios of the species, and the shape of net-proton rapidity spectra at mid-rapidity. The results obtained here can help predict and compare the measurements provided by future experiments at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) and the Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility (NICA) once the data becomes available. We also study the most suitable combination of the particlization model and EoS, which best describes the experimental measurements.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

Development of a water-based cooling system for the Muon Chamber detector system of the CBM experiment

A water-based cooling system is being investigated to meet the cooling requirement of the Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) based Muon Chamber (MuCh) detector system of the Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at GSI, Germany. The system is based on circulating cold water through the channels inside an aluminium plate. The aluminium plate is attached to a GEM chamber. A feasibility study is conducted on one small and two real-size prototype cooling plates. A microcontroller based unit has been built and integrated into the system to achieve automatic control and monitoring of temperature on plate surface. The real-size prototypes have been used in a test beam experiment at the CERN SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron) with the lead beam on a lead target. A setup using three prototype modules has been prepared in the lab for testing in a simulated real life environment. This paper discusses the working principle, mechanical design, fabrication, and test results of the cooling prototypes in detail.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figures, 2 table

Challenges in QCD matter physics - The Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at FAIR

Substantial experimental and theoretical efforts worldwide are devoted to explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. At LHC and top RHIC energies, QCD matter is studied at very high temperatures and nearly vanishing net-baryon densities. There is evidence that a Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) was created at experiments at RHIC and LHC. The transition from the QGP back to the hadron gas is found to be a smooth cross over. For larger net-baryon densities and lower temperatures, it is expected that the QCD phase diagram exhibits a rich structure, such as a first-order phase transition between hadronic and partonic matter which terminates in a critical point, or exotic phases like quarkyonic matter. The discovery of these landmarks would be a breakthrough in our understanding of the strong interaction and is therefore in the focus of various high-energy heavy-ion research programs. The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR will play a unique role in the exploration of the QCD phase diagram in the region of high net-baryon densities, because it is designed to run at unprecedented interaction rates. High-rate operation is the key prerequisite for high-precision measurements of multi-differential observables and of rare diagnostic probes which are sensitive to the dense phase of the nuclear fireball. The goal of the CBM experiment at SIS100 (sqrt(s_NN) = 2.7 - 4.9 GeV) is to discover fundamental properties of QCD matter: the phase structure at large baryon-chemical potentials (mu_B > 500 MeV), effects of chiral symmetry, and the equation-of-state at high density as it is expected to occur in the core of neutron stars. In this article, we review the motivation for and the physics programme of CBM, including activities before the start of data taking in 2022, in the context of the worldwide efforts to explore high-density QCD matter.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Published in European Physical Journal

Dynamics of Hot QCD Matter -- Current Status and Developments

The discovery and characterization of hot and dense QCD matter, known as Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), remains the most international collaborative effort and synergy between theorists and experimentalists in modern nuclear physics to date. The experimentalists around the world not only collect an unprecedented amount of data in heavy-ion collisions, at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in New York, USA, and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland but also analyze these data to unravel the mystery of this new phase of matter that filled a few microseconds old universe, just after the Big Bang. In the meantime, advancements in theoretical works and computing capability extend our wisdom about the hot-dense QCD matter and its dynamics through mathematical equations. The exchange of ideas between experimentalists and theoreticians is crucial for the progress of our knowledge. The motivation of this first conference named "HOT QCD Matter 2022" is to bring the community together to have a discourse on this topic. In this article, there are 36 sections discussing various topics in the field of relativistic heavy-ion collisions and related phenomena that cover a snapshot of the current experimental observations and theoretical progress. This article begins with the theoretical overview of relativistic spin-hydrodynamics in the presence of the external magnetic field, followed by the Lattice QCD results on heavy quarks in QGP, and finally, it ends with an overview of experiment results.Comment: Compilation of the contributions (148 pages) as presented in the `Hot QCD Matter 2022 conference', held from May 12 to 14, 2022, jointly organized by IIT Goa & Goa University, Goa, Indi

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged jet production in root s(NN)=2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions

We present measurements of the azimuthal dependence of charged jet production in central and semi-central root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions with respect to the second harmonic event plane, quantified as nu(ch)(2) (jet). Jet finding is performed employing the anti-k(T) algorithm with a resolution parameter R = 0.2 using charged tracks from the ALICE tracking system. The contribution of the azimuthal anisotropy of the underlying event is taken into account event-by-event. The remaining (statistical) region-to-region fluctuations are removed on an ensemble basis by unfolding the jet spectra for different event plane orientations independently. Significant non-zero nu(ch)(2) (jet) is observed in semi-central collisions (30-50% centrality) for 20 <p(T)(ch) (jet) <90 GeV/c. The azimuthal dependence of the charged jet production is similar to the dependence observed for jets comprising both charged and neutral fragments, and compatible with measurements of the nu(2) of single charged particles at high p(T). Good agreement between the data and predictions from JEWEL, an event generator simulating parton shower evolution in the presence of a dense QCD medium, is found in semi-central collisions. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Forward-central two-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions at root s(NN)=5.02 TeV

Two-particle angular correlations between trigger particles in the forward pseudorapidity range (2.5 2GeV/c. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B. V.Peer reviewe