Elliptical Flow in Relativistic Ion Collisions at s^(1/2)= 200 A GeV

A consistent picture of the Au+Au and D+Au, s^1/2 = 200 A GeV measurements at RHIC obtained with the PHENIX, STAR, PHOBOS and BRAHMS detectors including both the rapidity and transverse momentum spectra was previously developed with the simulation LUCIFER. The approach was modeled on the early production of a fluid of pre-hadrons after the completion of an initial, phase of high energy interactions. The formation of pre-hadrons is discussed here, in a perturbative QCD approach as advocated by Kopeliovich, Nemchik and Schmidt. In the second phase of LUCIFER, a considerably lower energy hadron-like cascade ensues. Since the dominant collisions occurring in this latter phase are meson-meson in character while the initial collisions are between baryons, i.e. both involve hadron sized interaction cross-sections, there is good reason to suspect that the observed elliptical flow will be produced naturally, and this is indeed found to be the case.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Suppression of High Transverse Momentum π0\pi^0 Spectra in Au+Au Collisions at RHIC

Au+Au, $s^{1/2} = 200$ A GeV measurements at RHIC, obtained with the PHENIX, STAR, PHOBOS and BRAHMS detectors, have all indicated a suppression of neutral pion production, relative to an appropriately normalized NN level. For central collisions and vanishing pseudo-rapidity these experiments exhibit suppression in charged meson production, especially at medium to large transverse momenta. In the PHENIX experiment similar behavior has been reported for $\pi^0$ spectra. In a recent work on the simpler D+Au interaction, to be considered perhaps as a tune-up for Au+Au, we reported on a pre-hadronic cascade mechanism which explains the mixed observation of moderately reduced $p_\perp$ suppression at higher pseudo-rapidity as well as the Cronin enhancement at mid-rapidity. Here we present the extension of this work to the more massive ion-ion collisions. Our major thesis is that much of the suppression is generated in a late stage cascade of colourless pre-hadrons produced after an initial short-lived coloured phase. We present a pQCD argument to justify this approach and to estimate the time duration $\tau_p$ of this initial phase. Of essential importance is the brevity in time of the coloured phase existence relative to that of the strongly interacting pre-hadron phase. The split into two phases is of course not sharp in time, but adequate for treating the suppression of moderate and high $p_\perp$ mesons.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figure

Rethinking the QCD collisional energy loss

It is shown that to leading order the collisional energy loss of an energetic parton in the hot quark gluon plasma reads $dE/dx \sim \alpha(m_D^2)T^2$, where the scale of the coupling is determined by the (parametrically soft) Debye screening mass. Compared to previous expressions derived by Bjorken and other authors, $dE^B/dx \sim \alpha^2 T^2 \ln(ET/m_D^2)$, the rectified result takes into account the running of the coupling, as dictated by quantum corrections beyond tree level. As one significant consequence, due to asymptotic freedom, the QCD collisional energy loss becomes independent of the jet energy in the limit $E \gg T$. It is advocated that this resummation improved perturbative result might be useful to (re-)estimate the collisional energy loss for temperatures relevant in heavy ion phenomenology.Comment: contribution to "Hot Quarks 2006", Villasimius, Italy, 15-20 May 200

Correlations and fluctuations studied with ALICE

The measurement of particle correlations and event-by-event fluctuations of physical observables allows to study a large variety of properties of the matter produced in ultra relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We will present results for two-particle correlations, mean transverse momentum fluctuations, and net charge fluctuations in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, Proceedings submitted for the 28th Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics, Puerto Rico, April 7-14, 2012; corrected typo

Overview of Hard processes at RHIC: high-pt light hadron and charm production

An overview of the experimental results on high-pt light hadron production and open charm production is presented. Data on particle production in elementary collisions are compared to next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations. Particle production in Au+Au collisions is then compared to this baseline.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, Strange Quark Matter 200

Identified hadron production at high transverse momenta in p+p collisions at sqrt(NN) = 200 GeV in STAR

We report the transverse momentum (pT) distributions for identified charged pions, protons and anti-protons using events triggered by high deposit energy in the Barrel Electro-Magnetic Calorimeter (BEMC) from p + p collisions at psNN = 200 GeV. The spectra are measured around mid-rapidity (|y|<0.5) over the range of 3<pT<15 GeV/c with particle identification (PID) by the relativistic ionization energy loss (rdE/dx) in the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) in the Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR). The charged pion, proton and anti-proton spectra at high pT are compared with published results from minimum bias triggered events and the Next-Leading-Order perturbative quantum chromodynamic (NLO pQCD) calculations (DSS, KKP and AKK 2008). In addition, we present the particle ratios of pi-/pi+, pbar/p, p/pi+ and pbar/pi- in p + p collisions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Hot Quark 2008 proceedin

Hard spectra and QCD matter: experimental review

The most significant experimental results on hadron spectra at large transverse momentum available at the time of Quark Matter 2004 conference are reviewed. Emphasis is put on those measurements that provide insights on the properties of the QCD media, ``Quark Gluon Plasma'' and ``Color Glass Condensate'', expected to be present in nucleus-nucleus collisions at collider energies.Comment: 2 plots updated. Minor changes in tex

Low-x QCD physics from RHIC and HERA to the LHC

We present a summary of the physics of gluon saturation and non-linear QCD evolution at small values of parton momentum fraction $x$ in the proton and nucleus in the context of recent experimental results at HERA and RHIC. The rich physics potential of low-x studies at the LHC, especially in the forward region, is discussed and some benchmark measurements in pp, pA and AA collisions are introduced.Comment: Invited overview talk at the 2nd HERA-LHC Workshop (CERN) and 4th International Conference on Quarks and Nuclear Physics (QNP06, Madrid). 7 pages, 13 figs. To appear in EPJ-

Equation of state at FAIR energies and the role of resonances

Two microscopic models, UrQMD and QGSM, are used to extract the effective equation of state (EOS) of locally equilibrated nuclear matter produced in heavy-ion collisions at energies from 11.6 AGeV to 160 AGeV. Analysis is performed for the fixed central cubic cell of volume V = 125 fm**3 and for the expanding cell that followed the growth of the central area with uniformly distributed energy. For all reactions the state of local equilibrium is nearly approached in both models after a certain relaxation period. The EOS has a simple linear dependence P/e = c_s**2 with 0.12 < c_s**2 < 0.145. Heavy resonances are shown to be responsible for deviations of the c_s**2(T) and c_s**2(mu_B) from linear behavior. In the T-mu_B and T-mu_S planes the EOS has also almost linear dependence and demonstrates kinks related not to the deconfinement phase transition but to inelastic freeze-out in the system.Comment: SQM2008 proceedings, 6 page

High transverse momentum suppression and surface effects in Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions within the PQM model

We study parton suppression effects in heavy-ion collisions within the Parton Quenching Model (PQM). After a brief summary of the main features of the model, we present comparisons of calculations for the nuclear modification and the away-side suppression factor to data in Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions at 200 GeV. We discuss properties of light hadron probes and their sensitivity to the medium density within the PQM Monte Carlo framework.Comment: Comments: 6 pages, 8 figures. To appear in the proceedings of Hot Quarks 2006: Workshop for Young Scientists on the Physics of Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions, Villasimius, Italy, 15-20 May 200