1,661 research outputs found
Heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in the LHC era: from proton-proton to heavy-ion collisions
This report reviews the study of open heavy-flavour and quarkonium production
in high-energy hadronic collisions, as tools to investigate fundamental aspects
of Quantum Chromodynamics, from the proton and nucleus structure at high energy
to deconfinement and the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma. Emphasis is
given to the lessons learnt from LHC Run 1 results, which are reviewed in a
global picture with the results from SPS and RHIC at lower energies, as well as
to the questions to be addressed in the future. The report covers heavy flavour
and quarkonium production in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus
collisions. This includes discussion of the effects of hot and cold strongly
interacting matter, quarkonium photo-production in nucleus-nucleus collisions
and perspectives on the study of heavy flavour and quarkonium with upgrades of
existing experiments and new experiments. The report results from the activity
of the SaporeGravis network of the I3 Hadron Physics programme of the European
Union 7th Framework Programme
Clonal diversity and conservation genetics of the medicinal plant Carapichea ipecacuanha (Rubiaceae)
The roots of the understorey shrub Carapichea ipecacuanha (ipecac) have medicinal properties, and the uprooting of wild plants has supplied most of the world demand for this species. Although under severe population decline, C. ipecacuanha lacks legal protection. In the wild, the aerial stems of ipecac clump together to form clusters with well-defined borders. Cluster size may range from several to hundreds of aerial stems. To investigate the extent of clonality among aerial stems in ipecac clusters, we sampled 50 wild clusters (a total of 291 aerial stems) and screened them with 89 inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. The 291 aerial stems were grouped into 42 putative clones. The clonal groups generally consisted of aerial stems from the same cluster, and there was little or no genetic differentiation among aerial stems at the cluster level. These findings suggest that strategies designed to conserve ipecac in situ should not rely upon census data, which are based on the number of aerial stems per cluster and the number of clusters per population, because such data greatly underestimate the species effective population size and genetic diversity. Our results also indicate that this species needs protection at a federal level
An Experimental Exploration of the QCD Phase Diagram: The Search for the Critical Point and the Onset of De-confinement
The QCD phase diagram lies at the heart of what the RHIC Physics Program is
all about. While RHIC has been operating very successfully at or close to its
maximum energy for almost a decade, it has become clear that this collider can
also be operated at lower energies down to 5 GeV without extensive upgrades. An
exploration of the full region of beam energies available at the RHIC facility
is imperative. The STAR detector, due to its large uniform acceptance and
excellent particle identification capabilities, is uniquely positioned to carry
out this program in depth and detail. The first exploratory beam energy scan
(BES) run at RHIC took place in 2010 (Run 10), since several STAR upgrades,
most importantly a full barrel Time of Flight detector, are now completed which
add new capabilities important for the interesting physics at BES energies. In
this document we discuss current proposed measurements, with estimations of the
accuracy of the measurements given an assumed event count at each beam energy.Comment: 59 pages, 78 figure
Charged and strange hadron elliptic flow in Cu+Cu collisions at = 62.4 and 200 GeV
We present the results of an elliptic flow analysis of Cu+Cu collisions
recorded with the STAR detector at 62.4 and 200GeV. Elliptic flow as a function
of transverse momentum is reported for different collision centralities for
charged hadrons and strangeness containing hadrons , ,
, in the midrapidity region . Significant reduction in
systematic uncertainty of the measurement due to non-flow effects has been
achieved by correlating particles at midrapidity, , with those at
forward rapidity, . We also present azimuthal correlations in
p+p collisions at 200 GeV to help estimating non-flow effects. To study the
system-size dependence of elliptic flow, we present a detailed comparison with
previously published results from Au+Au collisions at 200 GeV. We observe that
() of strange hadrons has similar scaling properties as were
first observed in Au+Au collisions, i.e.: (i) at low transverse momenta,
, scales with transverse kinetic energy, , and
(ii) at intermediate , , it scales with the number of
constituent quarks, . We have found that ideal hydrodynamic calculations
fail to reproduce the centrality dependence of () for
and . Eccentricity scaled values, , are larger
in more central collisions, suggesting stronger collective flow develops in
more central collisions. The comparison with Au+Au collisions which go further
in density shows depend on the system size, number of
participants . This indicates that the ideal hydrodynamic limit is
not reached in Cu+Cu collisions, presumably because the assumption of
thermalization is not attained.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figure
Inclusive pi^0, eta, and direct photon production at high transverse momentum in p+p and d+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV
We report a measurement of high-p_T inclusive pi^0, eta, and direct photon
production in p+p and d+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV at midrapidity (0
gamma gamma were detected in the
Barrel Electromagnetic Calorimeter of the STAR experiment at the Relativistic
Heavy Ion Collider. The eta -> gamma gamma decay was also observed and
constituted the first eta measurement by STAR. The first direct photon cross
section measurement by STAR is also presented, the signal was extracted
statistically by subtracting the pi^0, eta, and omega(782) decay background
from the inclusive photon distribution observed in the calorimeter. The
analysis is described in detail, and the results are found to be in good
agreement with earlier measurements and with next-to-leading order perturbative
QCD calculations.Comment: 28 pages, 30 figures, 6 tables, the updated version that was accepted
by Phys. Rev.
Longitudinal Spin Transfer to and Hyperons in Polarized Proton-Proton Collisions at = 200 GeV
The longitudinal spin transfer, , from high energy polarized protons
to and hyperons has been measured for the first time
in proton-proton collisions at with the STAR
detector at RHIC. The measurements cover pseudorapidity, , in the range
and transverse momenta, , up to . The longitudinal spin transfer is found to be for inclusive
and for
inclusive hyperons with and . The dependence on and is presented.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Studying Parton Energy Loss in Heavy-Ion Collisions via Direct-Photon and Charged-Particle Azimuthal Correlations
Charged-particle spectra associated with direct photon () and
are measured in + and Au+Au collisions at center-of-mass energy
GeV with the STAR detector at RHIC. A hower-shape
analysis is used to partially discriminate between and .
Assuming no associated charged particles in the direction (near
side) and small contribution from fragmentation photons (), the
associated charged-particle yields opposite to (away side) are
extracted. At mid-rapidity () in central Au+Au collisions,
charged-particle yields associated with and at high
transverse momentum ( GeV/) are suppressed by a factor
of 3-5 compared with + collisions. The observed suppression of the
associated charged particles, in the kinematic range and GeV/, is similar for and , and
independent of the energy within uncertainties. These
measurements indicate that the parton energy loss, in the covered kinematic
range, is insensitive to the parton path length.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett, 6 pages, 4 figure
Measurements of meson production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC
We present results for the measurement of meson production via its
charged kaon decay channel in Au+Au collisions at
, 130, and 200 GeV, and in and +Au collisions
at GeV from the STAR experiment at the BNL Relativistic
Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The midrapidity () meson transverse
momentum () spectra in central Au+Au collisions are found to be well
described by a single exponential distribution. On the other hand, the
spectra from , +Au and peripheral Au+Au collisions show power-law tails
at intermediate and high and are described better by Levy
distributions. The constant yield ratio vs beam species, collision
centrality and colliding energy is in contradiction with expectations from
models having kaon coalescence as the dominant mechanism for production
at RHIC. The yield ratio as a function of is consistent
with a model based on the recombination of thermal quarks up to GeV/, but disagrees at higher transverse momenta. The measured nuclear
modification factor, , for the meson increases above unity at
intermediate , similar to that for pions and protons, while is
suppressed due to the energy loss effect in central Au+Au collisions. Number of
constituent quark scaling of both and for the meson
with respect to other hadrons in Au+Au collisions at =200 GeV
at intermediate is observed. These observations support quark
coalescence as being the dominant mechanism of hadronization in the
intermediate region at RHIC.Comment: 22 pages, 21 figures, 4 table
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