Topologically induced local P and CP violation in hot QCD

Very stringent experimental bounds exist on the amount of P and CP violation in strong interactions. Nevertheless, the presence of non-Abelian topological solutions and the axial anomaly make the issue of CP invariance in QCD non-trivial ("the strong CP problem"). Even in the absence of a global P and CP violation the fluctuations of topological charge in the QCD vacuum are expected to play an important role in the breaking of chiral symmetry, and in the mass spectrum and other properties of hadrons. Here I argue that topological fluctuations in hot QCD matter can become directly observable in the presence of a very intense external magnetic field by inducing local P- and CP- odd effects. These local parity-violating phenomena can be described by using the Maxwell-Chern-Simons, or axion, electrodynamics as an effective theory. Local P and CP violation in hot QCD matter can be observed in experiment through the "chiral magnetic effect" - the separation of electric charge along the axis of magnetic field that is created by the colliding relativistic ions. There is a recent evidence for the electric charge separation relative to the reaction plane of heavy ion collisions from the STAR Collaboration at RHIC.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; presented at the 25th Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics, Big Sky, Montana, February 1-8, 200

D-instantons and multiparticle production in N=4 SYM

N=4 Super-symmetric Yang-Mills theory (N=4 SYM) in the strong coupling regime has been successfully applied (through the AdS/CFT correspondence) to the description of strongly coupled plasma which is a multiparticle state. Yet, the high-energy scattering in the strong coupling limit of N=4 SYM is purely elastic, so this multiparticle final state can never be produced: this is because in this limit the theory is dual to weak supergravity, and the dominant interaction is the elastic graviton exchange. Here we propose a resolution of this dilemma by considering the contribution of D-instantons in $AdS_5$ bulk space to the scattering amplitude. We argue that D-instantons coupled to dilatons and axions are responsible for multiparticle production in strongly coupled N=4 SYM, and the corresponding cross section increases with energy. We evaluate the intercept and the slope of the corresponding Pomeron trajectory in terms of the typical size of the D-instanton, and argue that the resulting physical picture may resemble the real world.Comment: 22 pp and 11 figures in the eps forma

High energy nuclear interactions and QCD: an introduction

The goal of these lectures, oriented towards the students just entering the field, is to provide an elementary introduction to QCD and the physics of nuclear interactions at high energies. We first introduce the general structure of QCD and discuss its main properties. Then we proceed to Glauber multiple scattering theory which lays the foundation for the theoretical treatment of nuclear interactions at high energies. We introduce the concept of Gribov's inelastic shadowing, crucial for the understanding of quantum formation effects. We outline the problems facing Glauber approach at high energies, and discuss how asymptotic freedom of QCD helps to resolve them, introducing the concepts of parton saturation and color glass condensate.Comment: 43 pp., 19 figures, based on lectures given by D. Kharzeev at the School on "New States of Matter in Hadronic Interactions" of the Pan American Advanced Study Institute (PASI 2002) in Campos do Jordao, Sao Paulo, Brazil, on January 7-18, 200

Quark fragmentation in the θ\theta-vacuum

The vacuum of Quantum Chromodynamics is a superposition of degenerate states with different topological numbers that are connected by tunneling (the $\theta$-vacuum). The tunneling events are due to topologically non-trivial configurations of gauge fields (e.g. the instantons) that induce local \p-odd domains in Minkowski space-time. We study the quark fragmentation in this topologically non-trivial QCD background. We find that even though QCD globally conserves \p and \cp symmetries, two new kinds of \p-odd fragmentation functions emerge. They generate interesting dihadron correlations: one is the azimuthal angle correlation $\sim \cos(\phi_1 + \phi_2)$ usually referred to as the Collins effect, and the other is the \p-odd correlation $\sim \sin(\phi_1 + \phi_2)$ that vanishes in the cross section summed over many events, but survives on the event-by-event basis. Using the chiral quark model we estimate the magnitude of these new fragmentation functions. We study their experimental manifestations in dihadron production in $e^+e^-$ collisions, and comment on the applicability of our approach in deep-inelastic scattering, proton-proton and heavy ion collisions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

J/ψJ/\psi suppression in heavy ion collsions and the QCD phase transition

We suggest that the new regime of $J/\psi$ suppression in Pb-Pb collisions found by the NA50 experiment at CERN is the result of non-trivial space-time evolution due to specific behavior of the Equation of State (EOS) near the QCD phase transition. We also study another suppression channel, the conversion of $J/\psi$ into $\eta_c$ during the late cool hadronic stage, and find it rather inefficient.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure