Two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in central Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

The first measurement of two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in central Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. We observe a growing trend with energy now not only for the longitudinal and the outward but also for the sideward pion source radius. The pion homogeneity volume and the decoupling time are significantly larger than those measured at RHIC.Comment: 17 pages, 5 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 12, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/388

Suppression of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in central Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

Inclusive transverse momentum spectra of primary charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV have been measured by the ALICE Collaboration at the LHC. The data are presented for central and peripheral collisions, corresponding to 0-5% and 70-80% of the hadronic Pb-Pb cross section. The measured charged particle spectra in $|\eta|<0.8$ and $0.3 < p_T < 20$ GeV/$c$ are compared to the expectation in pp collisions at the same $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$, scaled by the number of underlying nucleon-nucleon collisions. The comparison is expressed in terms of the nuclear modification factor $R_{\rm AA}$. The result indicates only weak medium effects ($R_{\rm AA} \approx$ 0.7) in peripheral collisions. In central collisions, $R_{\rm AA}$ reaches a minimum of about 0.14 at $p_{\rm T}=6$-7GeV/$c$ and increases significantly at larger $p_{\rm T}$. The measured suppression of high-$p_{\rm T}$ particles is stronger than that observed at lower collision energies, indicating that a very dense medium is formed in central Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages, 5 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 10, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/98

A Chiral Magnetic Effect from AdS/CFT with Flavor

For (3+1)-dimensional fermions, a net axial charge and external magnetic field can lead to a current parallel to the magnetic field. This is the chiral magnetic effect. We use gauge-gravity duality to study the chiral magnetic effect in large-Nc, strongly-coupled N=4 supersymmetric SU(Nc) Yang-Mills theory coupled to a number Nf << Nc of N=2 hypermultiplets in the Nc representation of SU(Nc), i.e. flavor fields. Specifically, we introduce an external magnetic field and a time-dependent phase for the mass of the flavor fields, which is equivalent to an axial chemical potential for the flavor fermions, and we compute holographically the resulting chiral magnetic current. For massless flavors we find that the current takes the value determined by the axial anomaly. For massive flavors the current appears only in the presence of a condensate of pseudo-scalar mesons, and has a smaller value than for massless flavors, dropping to zero for sufficiently large mass or magnetic field. The axial symmetry in our system is part of the R-symmetry, and the states we study involve a net flow of axial charge to the adjoint sector from an external source coupled to the flavors. We compute the time rate of change of axial charge and of energy both in field theory and from holography, with perfect agreement. In contrast to previous holographic models of the chiral magnetic effect, in our system the vector current is conserved and gauge-invariant without any special counterterms.Comment: 54 pages, 18 eps files in 6 figure

QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories : challenges and perspectives

We highlight the progress, current status, and open challenges of QCD-driven physics, in theory and in experiment. We discuss how the strong interaction is intimately connected to a broad sweep of physical problems, in settings ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to strongly coupled, complex systems in particle and condensed-matter physics, as well as to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We also discuss how success in describing the strong interaction impacts other fields, and, in turn, how such subjects can impact studies of the strong interaction. In the course of the work we offer a perspective on the many research streams which flow into and out of QCD, as well as a vision for future developments.Peer reviewe