Flash of photons from the early stage of heavy-ion collisions

The dynamics of partonic cascades may be an important aspect for particle production in relativistic collisions of nuclei at CERN SPS and BNL RHIC energies. Within the Parton-Cascade Model, we estimate the production of single photons from such cascades due to scattering of quarks and gluons q g -> q gamma, quark-antiquark annihilation q qbar -> g gamma, or gamma gamma, and from electromagnetic brems-strahlung of quarks q -> q gamma. We find that the latter QED branching process plays the dominant role for photon production, similarly as the QCD branchings q -> q g and g -> g g play a crucial role for parton multiplication. We conclude therefore that photons accompanying the parton cascade evolution during the early stage of heavy-ion collisions shed light on the formation of a partonic plasma.Comment: 4 pages including 3 postscript figure

Out of Equilibrium Non-perturbative Quantum Field Dynamics in Homogeneous External Fields

The quantum dynamics of the symmetry broken lambda (Phi^2)^2 scalar field theory in the presence of an homogeneous external field is investigated in the large N limit. We choose as initial state the ground state for a constant external field J .The sign of the external field is suddenly flipped from J to - J at a given time and the subsequent quantum dynamics calculated. Spinodal instabilities and parametric resonances produce large quantum fluctuations in the field components transverse to the external field. This allows the order parameter to turn around the maximum of the potential for intermediate times. Subsequently, the order parameter starts to oscillate near the global minimum for external field - J, entering a novel quasi-periodic regime.Comment: LaTex, 30 pages, 12 .ps figures, improved version to appear in Phys Rev

Non-equilibrium dynamics in quantum field theory at high density: the tsunami

The dynamics of a dense relativistic quantum fluid out of thermodynamic equilibrium is studied in the framework of the Phi^4 scalar field theory in the large N limit. The time evolution of a particle distribution in momentum space (the tsunami) is computed. The effective mass felt by the particles in such a high density medium equals the tree level mass plus the expectation value of the squared field. The case of negative tree level squared mass is particularly interesting. In such case dynamical symmetry restoration as well as dynamical symmetry breaking can happen. Furthermore, the symmetry may stay broken with vanishing asymptotic squared mass showing the presence of out of equilibrium Goldstone bosons. We study these phenomena and identify the set of initial conditions that lead to each case. We compute the equation of state which turns to depend on the initial state. Although the system does not thermalize, the equation of state for asymptotically broken symmetry is of radiation type. We compute the correlation functions at equal times. The two point correlator for late times is the sum of different terms. One stems from the initial particle distribution. Another term accounts for the out of equilibrium Goldstone bosons created by spinodal unstabilities when the symmetry is asymptotically broken.Both terms are of the order of the inverse of the coupling for distances where causal signals can connect the two points. The contribution of the out of equilibrium Goldstones exhibits scaling behaviour in a generalized sense.Comment: LaTex, 49 pages, 15 .ps figure

A QCD space-time analysis of quarkonium formation and evolution in hadronic collisions

The production of heavy quarkonium as QQbar bound-states in hadron-hadron collisions is considered within the framework of a space-time description, combining parton-cascade evolution with a coalescence model for bound-state formation. The `hard' production of the initial QQbar, directly or via gluon fragmentation and including both color-singlet and color-octet contributions, is calculated from the PQCD cross-sections. The subsequent development of the QQbar system is described within a space-time generalization of the DGLAP parton-evolution formalism in position- and momentum-space. The actual formation of the bound-states is accomplished through overlap of the QQbar pair and a spectrum of quarkonium wave-functions. This coalescence can only occur after sufficent gluon radiation reduces the QQbar relative velocity to a value commensurate with the non-relativistic kinematics of these bound systems. The presence of gluon participants in the cascade then is both necessary and leads to the natural inclusion of both color-singlet and color-octet mechanisms. The application of this approach to pp (ppbar) collisions from sqrt(s)= 30 GeV - 14 TeV reveals very decent agreement with available data from ISR and Tevatron - without the necessity of introducing fit parameters. Moreover, production probabilities are calculated for a complete spectrum of charmonium and bottonium states, with the relative significance compared to open charm (bottom) production. An analysis of the space-time development is carried through which sheds light on the relevance of gluon radiation and color-structure, suggesting a correponding experimental investigation.Comment: 37 pages including 16 postscript figure

Examining the Personal and Institutional Determinants of Research Productivity in Hospitality and Tourism Management

The transition toward a post-capitalist knowledge-oriented economy has resulted in an increasingly competitive academic environment, where the success of faculty is dependent on their research productivity. This study examines the personal and institutional determinants of the quantity and quality of the research productivity of hospitality and tourism management faculty in US institutions. A survey of 98 faculty found that a different set of determinants impact the quantity and quality aspects of research productivity. Also, institutional determinants were found to play a larger role, indicating the need for administrators to strive for a culture that is supportive of and an infrastructure that is conducive to their faculty’s research success. The authors use the field of hospitality and tourism management as a case study to develop a holistic and cohesive framework for knowledge worker productivity that can guide the evaluation, hiring, and development of researchers

Gluon Radiation and Coherent States in Ultrarelativistic Nuclear Collisions

We explore the correspondence between classical gluon radiation and quantum radiation in a coherent state for gluons produced in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions. The expectation value of the invariant momentum distribution of gluons in the coherent state is found to agree with the gluon number distribution obtained classically from the solution of the Yang-Mills equations. A criterion for the applicability of the coherent state formalism to the problem of radiation in ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions is discussed. This criterion is found to be fulfilled for midrapidity gluons with perturbative transverse momenta larger than about 1-2 GeV and produced in collisions between valence partons.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, RevTeX (with epsf, psfig style files

Hadronic freeze-out following a first order hadronization phase transition in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions

We analyze the hadronic freeze-out in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC in a transport approach which combines hydrodynamics for the early, dense, deconfined stage of the reaction with a microscopic non-equilibrium model for the later hadronic stage at which the hydrodynamic equilibrium assumptions are not valid. With this ansatz we are able to self-consistently calculate the freeze-out of the system and determine space-time hypersurfaces for individual hadron species. The space-time domains of the freeze-out for several hadron species are found to be actually four-dimensional, and differ drastically for the individual hadrons species. Freeze-out radii distributions are similar in width for most hadron species, even though the Omega-baryon is found to be emitted rather close to the phase boundary and shows the smallest freeze-out radii and times among all baryon species. The total lifetime of the system does not change by more than 10% when going from SPS to RHIC energies.Comment: 11 pages, 4 eps-figures included, revised versio

Secondary phi meson peak as an indicator of QCD phase transition in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions

In a previous paper, we have shown that a double phi peak structure appears in the dilepton invariant mass spectrum if a first order QCD phase transition occurs in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. Furthermore, the transition temperature can be determined from the transverse momentum distribution of the low mass phi peak. In this work, we extend the study to the case that a smooth crossover occurs in the quark-gluon plasma to the hadronic matter transition. We find that the double phi peak structure still exists in the dilepton spectrum and thus remains a viable signal for the formation of the quark-gluon plasma in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions.Comment: 8 pages, 9 uuencoded postscript figures included, Latex, LBL-3572

Parton Equilibration in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

We investigate the processes leading to phase-space equilibration of parton distributions in nuclear interactions at collider energies. We derive a set of rate equations describing the chemical equilibration of gluons and quarks including medium effects on the relevant QCD transport coefficients, and discuss their consequences for parton equilibration in heavy ion collisions.Comment: 18 pages, 6 Figures appended as uuencoded PostScript files, (no changes in the previously submitted manuscript), DUKE-TH-93-4

Analytic Solutions of QCD Evolution Equations for Parton Cascades Inside Nuclear Matter at Small X

An analytical method is presented to solve generalized QCD evolution equations for the time development of parton cascades in a nuclear environment. Closed solutions for the spectra of produced partons with respect to the variables time, longitudinal momentum and virtuality are obtained under some idealizing assumptions about the composition of the nuclear medium. Several characteristic features of the resulting parton distributions are discussed. One of the main conclusions is that the evolution of a parton shower in medium is dilated as compared to free space and is accompanied by an enhancement of particle production. These effects become stronger with increasing nuclear density.Comment: 40 pages, 6 figure