3,668 research outputs found
Jozsó's Legacy: Chemical and kinetic freeze-out in heavy-ion collisions
Abstract.: We review J. Zimányi's key contributions to the theoretical understanding of dynamical freeze-out in nuclear collisions and their subsequent applications to ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, leading to the discovery of a freeze-out hierarchy where chemical freeze-out of hadron yields precedes the thermal decoupling of their momentum spectra. Following Zimányi's lines of reasoning we show that kinetic freeze-out necessarily leads to a dependence of the corresponding freeze-out temperature on collision centrality. This centrality dependence can be predicted within hydrodynamic models, and for Au+Au collisions at RHIC this prediction is shown to reproduce the experimentally observed centrality dependence of the thermal decoupling temperature, extracted from hadron momentum spectra. The fact that no such centrality dependence is observed for the chemical decoupling temperature, extracted from the hadron yields measured in these collisions, excludes a similar kinetic interpretation of the chemical decoupling process. We argue that the chemical decoupling data from Au+Au collisions at RHIC can only be consistently understood if the chemical freeze-out process is driven by a phase transition, and that the measured chemical decoupling temperature therefore measures the critical temperature of the quark-hadron phase transition. We propose additional experiments to further test this interpretatio
Hydrodynamic emission of strange and non-strange particles at RHIC and LHC
The hydrodynamic model is used to describe the single-particle spectra and
elliptic flow of hadrons at RHIC and to predict the emission angle dependence
of HBT correlations at RHIC and LHC energies.Comment: 6 pages LaTeX, 3 postscript figures. Proceedings for the conference
"Strange Quark Matter 2003", Atlantic Beach, NC, March 12-17, 2003, to appear
in J. Phys.
Radial flow afterburner for event generators and the baryon puzzle
A simple afterburner including radial flow to the randomized transverse
momentum obtained from event generators, Pythia and Hijing, has been
implemented to calculate the ratios and compare them with available
data. A coherent trend of qualitative agreement has been obtained in
collisions and in for various centralities. Those results indicate that
the radial flow does play an important role in the so called baryon puzzle
anomaly.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. To appear in Journal of Physics
Fluctuations from dissipation in a hot non-Abelian plasma
We consider a transport equation of the Boltzmann-Langevin type for
non-Abelian plasmas close to equilibrium to derive the spectral functions of
the underlying microscopic fluctuations from the entropy. The correlator of the
stochastic source is obtained from the dissipative processes in the plasma.
This approach, based on classical transport theory, exploits the well-known
link between a linearized collision integral, the entropy and the spectral
functions. Applied to the ultra-soft modes of a hot non-Abelian (classical or
quantum) plasma, the resulting spectral functions agree with earlier findings
obtained from the microscopic theory. As a by-product, it follows that
B\"odeker's effective theory is consistent with the fluctuation-dissipation
theorem.Comment: 9 pages, revtex, no figures, identical to published versio
Final state interactions in two-particle interferometry
We reconsider the influence of two-particle final state interactions (FSI) on
two-particle Bose-Einstein interferometry. We concentrate in particular on the
problem of particle emission at different times. Assuming chaoticity of the
source, we derive a new general expression for the symmetrized two-particle
cross section. We discuss the approximations needed to derive from the general
result the Koonin-Pratt formula. Introducing a less stringent version of the
so-called smoothness approximation we also derive a more accurate formula. It
can be implemented into classical event generators and allows to calculate FSI
corrected two-particle correlation functions via modified Bose-Einstein
"weights".Comment: 12 pages RevTeX, 2 ps-figures included, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Lattice Gauge Description of Colliding Nuclei
We propose a novel formalism for simultaneously describing both, the hard and
soft parton dynamics in ultrarelativistic collisions of nuclei. The emission of
gluons from the initially coherent parton configurations of the colliding
nuclei and low- color coherence effects are treated in the framework of a
Yang-Mills transport equation on a coupled lattice-particle system. A collision
term is added to the transport equation to account for the remaining
intermediate and high- interactions in an infrared finite manner.Comment: 8 page
Energy and momentum deposited into a QCD medium by a jet shower
Hard partons moving through a dense QCD medium lose energy by radiative
emissions and elastic scatterings. Deposition of the radiative contribution
into the medium requires rescattering of the radiated gluons. We compute the
total energy loss and its deposition into the medium self-consistently within
the same formalism, assuming perturbative interaction between probe and medium.
The same transport coefficients that control energy loss of the hard parton
determine how the energy is deposited into the medium; this allows a parameter
free calculation of the latter once the former have been computed or extracted
from experimental energy loss data. We compute them for a perturbative medium
in hard thermal loop (HTL) approximation. Assuming that the deposited
energy-momentum is equilibrated after a short relaxation time, we compute the
medium's hydrodynamical response and obtain a conical pattern that is strongly
enhanced by showering.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, revtex4, intro modified, typos correcte
Reducing the Probability of False Positive Research Findings by Pre-Publication Validation - Experience with a Large Multiple Sclerosis Database
*Objective*
We have assessed the utility of a pre-publication validation policy in reducing the probability of publishing false positive research findings. 
*Study design and setting*
The large database of the Sylvia Lawry Centre for Multiple Sclerosis Research was split in two parts: one for hypothesis generation and a validation part for confirmation of selected results. We present case studies from 5 finalized projects that have used the validation policy and results from a simulation study.
*Results*
In one project, the "relapse and disability" project as described in section II (example 3), findings could not be confirmed in the validation part of the database. The simulation study showed that the percentage of false positive findings can exceed 20% depending on variable selection. 
*Conclusion*
We conclude that the validation policy has prevented the publication of at least one research finding that could not be validated in an independent data set (and probably would have been a "true" false-positive finding) over the past three years, and has led to improved data analysis, statistical programming, and selection of hypotheses. The advantages outweigh the lost statistical power inherent in the process
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