Comparison of Nuclear Suppression Effects on Meson Production at High p_T and p_L

The medium effect on the pion distribution at high $p_T$ in $AA$ collisions is compared to that of the pion distribution at high $p_L$ in $pA$ collisions. Both the suppression of the spectra and the energy losses of the measured pions are studied. Although the medium effect on $p_T$ is larger than on $p_L$, the difference is found surprisingly to be not as big as one would naively expect.Comment: 8 RevTex pages with 5 figure

Quark-hadron phase transition with surface fluctuation

The effect of surface fluctuation on the observables of quark-hadron phase transition is studied. The Ginzburg-Landau formalism is extended by the inclusion of an extra term in the free energy that depends on the vertical displacements from a flat surface. The probability that a bin has a particular net displacement is determined by lattice simulation, where the physics input is color confinement. The surface fluctuation from bin to bin is related to multiplicity fluctuation, which in turn is measured by the factorial moments. It is found that both the F-scaling behavior and the scaling exponent are essentially unaffected by the inclusion of surface fluctuation.Comment: 9 pages, LaTex, 7 figures in a single postscript file, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Parton Distributions in the Valon Model

The parton distribution functions determined by CTEQ at low $Q^2$ are used as inputs to test the validity of the valon model. The valon distributions in a nucleon are first found to be nearly $Q$ independent. The parton distribution in a valon are shown to be consistent with being universal, independent of the valon type. The momentum fractions of the partons in the valon add up separately to one. These properties affirm the validity of the valon model. The various distributions are parameterized for convenient application of the model.Comment: 9 pages + 9 figures in ep

Nucleon participants or quark participants?

We show that centrality dependence of charged particle pseudorapidity density at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at RHIC is well described as proportional to We show that centrality dependence of charged particle pseudorapidity density at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at RHIC is well described as proportional to the number of participating constituent quarks. In this approach there is no need for an additional contribution from hard processes usually considered in the models based on the number of the nucleon participants.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, latex, version accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Fluctuation of Gaps in Hadronization at Phase Transition

Event-by-event fluctuations of hadronic patterns in heavy-ion collisions are studied in search for signatures of quark-hadron phase transition. Attention is focused on a narrow strip in the azimuthal angle with small $\Delta y$. The fluctuations in the gaps between particles are quantified by simple measures. A scaling exponent $\alpha$ is shown to exist around $T_c$. An index $\xi$ is shown to characterize the critical fluctuation; it is a numerical constant $\xi=0.05\pm0.01$. All the measures considered in this gap analysis are experimentally observable. Whether or not the theoretical predictions, based on simulations using 2-dimensional Ising model, are realistic for heavy-ion collisions, analysis of the experimental data suggested here should be carried out, since the existence of a scaling behavior is of interest in its own right.Comment: 10 pages LaTex + 8 eps figure

Universal behavior of multiplicity differences in quark-hadron phase transition

The scaling behavior of factorial moments of the differences in multiplicities between well separated bins in heavy-ion collisions is proposed as a probe of quark-hadron phase transition. The method takes into account some of the physical features of nuclear collisions that cause some difficulty in the application of the usual method. It is shown in the Ginzburg-Landau theory that a numerical value $\gamma$ of the scaling exponent can be determined independent of the parameters in the problem. The universality of $\gamma$ characterizes quark-hadron phase transition, and can be tested directly by appropriately analyzed data.Comment: 15 pages, including 4 figures (in epsf file), Latex, submitted to Phys. Rev.

A generalization of Alternating Sign Matrices

In alternating sign matrices the first and last nonzero entry in each row and column is specified to be +1. Such matrices always exist. We investigate a generalization by specifying independently the sign of the first and last nonzero entry in each row and column to be either a +1 or a -1. We determine necessary and sufficient conditions for such matrices to exist.Comment: 14 page

Fragmentation or Recombination at High p_T?

All hadronization processes, including fragmentation, are shown to proceed through recombination. The shower partons in a jet turn out to play an important role in describing the p_T spectra of hadrons produced in heavy-ion collisions. Due to the recombination of the shower partons with the soft thermal partons, the structure of jets produced in AA collisions is not the same as that of jets produced in pp collisions.Comment: Talk given at Quark Matter 200

Charm Correlation as a Diagnostic Probe of Quark Matter

The use of correlation between two open-charm mesons is suggested to give information about the nature of the medium created in heavy-ion collisions. Insensitivity to the charm production rate is achieved by measuring normalized cumulant. The acollinearity of the D momenta in the transverse plane is a measure of the medium effect. Its dependence on nuclear size or E_T provides a signature for the formation of quark matter.Comment: 12 pages, no figure

Dihadron Correlation in Jets Produced in Heavy-Ion Collisions

The difference between the structures of jets produced in heavy-ion and hadronic collisions can best be exhibited in the correlations between particles within those jets. We study the dihadron correlations in jets in the framework of parton recombination. Two types of triggers, $\pi^+$ and proton, are considered. It is shown that the recombination of thermal and shower partons makes the most important contribution to the spectra of the associated particles at intermediate $p_T$. In $pp$ collisions the only significant contribution arises from shower-shower recombination, which is negligible in heavy-ion collisions. Moments of the associated-particle distributions are calculated to provide simple summary of the jet structures for easy comparison with experiments.Comment: 24 pages in Latex + 5 figure