Transport Properties of Quark and Gluon Plasmas

The kinetic properties of relativistic quark-gluon and electron-photon plasmas are described in the weak coupling limit. The troublesome Rutherford divergence at small scattering angles is screened by Debye screening for the longitudinal or electric part of the interactions. The transverse or magnetic part of the interactions is effectively screened by Landau damping of the virtual photons and gluons transferred in the QED and QCD interactions respectively. Including screening a number of transport coefficients for QCD and QED plasmas can be calculated to leading order in the interaction strength, including rates of momentum and thermal relaxation, electrical conductivity, viscosities, flavor and spin diffusion of both high temperature and degenerate plasmas. Damping of quarks and gluons as well as color diffusion in quark-gluon plasmas is, however, shown not to be sufficiently screened and the rates depends on an infrared cut-off of order the ``magnetic mass", $m_{\rm mag}\sim g^2 T$.Comment: 12 pages, report LBL-3491

Freeze-out from HBT and Coulomb Effects

The freeze-out of hot and dense hadronic matter formed in relativistic nuclear collisions is probed by HBT interferometry of identical pions, kaons, etc. Coulomb repulsion/attraction of positive/negative particles show up at small particle momenta and is also very sensitive to the freeze-out conditions. The source sizes and times freeze-out are extracted from $\pi^-/\pi^+$ spectra and HBT radii and compared.Comment: 4 pages, proc. of QM'97, Tsukuba, Japa

Itinerant Ferromagnetism in ultracold Fermi gases

Itinerant ferromagnetism in cold Fermi gases with repulsive interactions is studied applying the Jastrow-Slater approximation generalized to finite polarization and temperature. For two components at zero temperature a second order transition is found at $ak_F\simeq0.90$ compatible with QMC. Thermodynamic functions and observables such as the compressibility and spin susceptibility and the resulting fluctuations in number and spin are calculated. For trapped gases the resulting cloud radii and kinetic energies are calculated and compared to recent experiments. Spin polarized systems are recommended for effective separation of large ferromagnetic domains. Collective modes are predicted and tri-critical points are calculated for multi-component systems.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Hubbard model calculations of phase separation in optical lattices

Antiferromagnetic, Mott insulator, d-wave and gossamer superfluid phases are calculated for 2D square lattices from the extended Hubbard (t-J-U) model using the Gutzwiller projection method and renormalized mean field theory. Phase separation between antiferromagnetic and d-wave superfluid phases is found near half filling when the on-site repulsion exceeds U\ga7.3t, and coincides with a first order transition in the double occupancy. Phase separation is thus predicted for 2D optical lattices with ultracold Fermi atoms whereas it is inhibited in cuprates by Coulomb frustration which instead may lead to stripes. In a confined optical lattice the resulting density distribution is discontinuous an with extended Mott plateau which enhances the antiferromagnetic phase but suppresses the superfluid phase. Observation of Mott insulator, antiferromagnetic, stripe and superfluid phases in density and momentum distributions and correlations is discussed

Bose-Einstein Correlations from Opaque Sources

Bose-Einstein correlations in relativistic heavy ion collisions are very different for opaque sources than fortransparent ones. The Bose-Einstein radius parameters measured in two-particle correlation functions depend sensitively on the mean free path of the particles. In particular we find that the outward radius for an opaque source is smaller than the sidewards radius for sufficiently short duration of emission. A long duration of emission can compensate the opacity reduction of the longitudinal radius parameter and explain the experimental measurements of very similar side- and outward radius parameters.Comment: additional material included, 8 pages, revtex, epsfig, 2 figure included, manuscript also available at http://www.nbi.dk/~vischer/publications.htm

Color, Spin and Flavor Diffusion in Quark-Gluon Plasmas

In weakly interacting quark-gluon plasmas diffusion of color is found to be much slower than the diffusion of spin and flavor because color is easily exchanged by the gluons in the very singular forward scattering processes. If the infrared divergence is cut off by a magnetic mass, $m_{mag}\sim \alpha_sT$, the color diffusion is $D_{color}\sim (\alpha_s\ln(1/\alpha_s)T)^{-1}$, a factor $\alpha_s$ smaller than spin and flavor diffusion. A similar effect is expected in electroweak plasmas above $M_W$ due to $W^\pm$ exchanges. The color conductivity in quark-gluon plasmas and the electrical conductivity in electroweak plasmas are correspondingly small in relativistic heavy ion collisions and the very early universe.Comment: 5 pages, no figure

Fluctuations and HBT Scales in Relativistic Nuclear Collisions

Bose-Einstein correlations in relativistic heavy ion collisions are examined in a general model containing the essential features of hydrodynamical, cascade as well as other models commonly employed for describing the particle freeze-out. In particular the effects of longitudinal and transverse expansion, emission from surfaces moving in time, the thickness of the emitting layer varying from surface to volume emission and other effects are studied. Model dependences of freeze-out sizes and times are discussed and compared to recent $Pb+Pb$ data at 160A$\cdot$GeV.Comment: 9 pages, revtex, epsfig, 2 figure included, manuscript also available at http://www.nbi.dk/~vischer/publications.htm