Possible links between the liquid-gas and deconfinement-hadronization phase transitions

It is commonly accepted that strongly interacting matter has several phase transitions in different domains of temperature and baryon density. In this contribution I discuss two most popular phase transitions which in principle can be accessed in nuclear collisions. One of them, the liquid-gas phase transition, is well established theoretically and studied experimentally in nuclear multifragmentation reactions at intermediate energies. The other one, the deconfinement-hadronization phase transition, is at the focus of present and future experimental studies with relativistic heavy-ion beams at SPS, RHIC and LHC. Pssible links between these two phase transitions are identified from the viewpoint of their manifestation in violent nuclear collisions.Comment: 15 pages in revtex, 2 figures, to be published in the book "Dynamics and Thermodynamics with Nuclear Degrees of Freedom" by Springe

Hydrodynamical modeling of the deconfinement phase transition and explosive hadronization

Dynamics of relativistic heavy-ion collisions is investigated on the basis of a simple (1+1)-dimensional hydrodynamical model in light-cone coordinates. The main emphasis is put on studying sensitivity of the dynamics and observables to the equation of state and initial conditions. Low sensitivity of pion rapidity spectra to the presence of the phase transition is demonstrated, and some inconsistencies of the equilibrium scenario are pointed out. Possible non-equilibrium effects are discussed, in particular, a possibility of an explosive disintegration of the deconfined phase into quark-gluon droplets. Simple estimates show that the characteristic droplet size should decrease with increasing the collective expansion rate. These droplets will hadronize individually by emitting hadrons from the surface. This scenario should reveal itself by strong non-statistical fluctuations of observables. Critical Point and Onset of Deconfinement 4th International Workshop July 9-13 2007 GSI Darmstadt,German

Studying Phase Transitions in Nuclear Collisions

In this talk I discuss three main topics concerning the theoretical description and observable signatures of possible phase transitions in nuclear collisions. The first one is related to the multifragmentation of thermalized sources and its connection to a liquid-gas phase transition in finite systems. The second one is dealing with the Coulomb excitation of ultrarelativistic heavy ions resulting in their deep disintegration. The third topic is devoted to the description of a first order phase transition in rapidly expanding matter. The resulting picture is that a strong collective flow of matter will lead to the fragmentation of a metastable phase into droplets. If the transition from quark-gluon plasma to hadron gas is of the first order it will manifest itself by strong nonstatistical fluctuations in observable hadron distributions.Comment: Invited talk presented at the International Conference "Physics with Storage Rings" (Bloomington, USA, 12-16 Sep. 1999), 16 pages in LaTeX including 4 eps figures, fig. 1 in colo

Clusters of matter and antimatter

In this talk I first give a short overview of antinuclei production in recent experiments at RHIC. Then I discuss the possibility of producing new types of nuclear systems by implanting an antibaryon into ordinary nuclei. The structure of nuclei containing one antiproton or antilambda is investigated within the framework of a relativistic mean-field model. Self-consistent calculations predict an enhanced binding and considerable compression in such systems as compared with normal nuclei. I present arguments that the life time of such nuclei with respect to the antibaryon annihilation might be long enough for their observation. Few experimental signatures are suggested. Possible formation of multi-quark-antiquark clusters is also discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 6 eps figures, invited talk at the VIII International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (Moscow, 17-21 June 2003

Collective mechanism of dilepton production in high-energy nuclear collisions

Collective bremsstrahlung of vector meson fields in relativistic nuclear collisions is studied within the time-dependent Walecka model. Mutual deceleration of the colliding nuclei is described by introducing the effective stopping time and average rapidity loss of baryons. It is shown that electromagnetic decays of virtual omega-mesons produced by bremsstrahlung mechanism can provide a substantial contribution to the soft dilepton yield at the SPS bombarding energies. In particular, it may be responsible for the dilepton enhancement observed in 160 AGev central Pb+Au collisions. Suggestions for future experiments to estimate the relative contribution of the collective mechanism are given.Comment: 6 page

Thermodynamics of dense hadronic matter in a parity doublet model

We study thermodynamics of nuclear matter in a two-flavored parity doublet model within the mean field approximation. Parameters of the model are chosen to reproduce correctly the properties of the nuclear ground state. The model predicts two phase transitions in nuclear matter, a liquid-gas phase transition at normal nuclear density and a chiral transition at higher density. At finite temperature the pion decay constant exhibits a considerable reduction at intermediate values of chemical potential, which is traced back to the presence of the liquid-gas transition, and approaches zero at higher chemical potential associated with the chiral symmetry restoration. A "transition" from meson-rich to baryon-rich matter is also discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure