Irreversibility, steady state, and nonequilibrium physics in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Heavy ion collisions at ultrarelativistic energies offer the opportunity to study the irreversibility of multiparticle processes. Together with the many-body decays of resonances, the multiparticle processes cause the system to evolve according to Prigogine s steady states rather than towards statistical equilibrium. These results are general and can be easily checked by any microscopic string-, transport-, or cascade model for heavy ion collisions. The absence of pure equilibrium states sheds light on the di culties of thermal models in describing the yields and spectra of hadrons, especially mesons, in heavy ion collisions at bombarding energies above 10 GeV/nucleon. PACS numbers: 25.75.-q, 05.70.Ln, 24.10.L

Homogeneous nucleation of quark gluon plasma, finite size effects and longlived metastable objects

The general formalism of homogeneous nucleation theory is applied to study the hadronization pattern of the ultra-relativistic quark-gluon plasma (QGP) undergoing a first order phase transition. A coalescence model is proposed to describe the evolution dynamics of hadronic clusters produced in the nucle- ation process. The size distribution of the nucleated clusters is important for the description of the plasma conversion. The model is most sensitive to the initial conditions of the QGP thermalization, time evolution of the energy den- sity, and the interfacial energy of the plasma hadronic matter interface. The rapidly expanding QGP is first supercooled by about T = T Tc = 4 6%. Then it reheats again up to the critical temperature Tc. Finally it breaks up into hadronic clusters and small droplets of plasma. This fast dynamics occurs within the first 5 10 fm/c. The finite size e ects and fluctuations near the critical temperature are studied. It is shown that a drop of longitudinally expanding QGP of the transverse radius below 4.5 fm can display a long-lived metastability. However, both in the rapid and in the delayed hadronization scenario, the bulk pion yield is emitted by sources as large as 3 4.5 fm. This may be detected experimentally both by a HBT interferometry signal and by the analysis of the rapidity distributions of particles in narrow pT -intervals at small |pT | on an event-by-event basis. PACS numbers: 12.38.Mh, 24.10.Pa, 25.75.-q, 64.60.Q

Supercooling of rapidly expanding quark-gluon plasma

We reexamine the scenario of homogeneous nucleation of the quark-gluon plasma produced in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. A generalization of the standard nucleation theory to rapidly expanding system is proposed. The nucleation rate is derived via the new scaling parameter $\lambda_Z$. It is shown that the size distribution of hadronic clusters plays an important role in the dynamics of the phase transition. The longitudinally expanding system is supercooled to about 3-6%, then it is reheated, and the hadronization is completed within 6-10 fm/c, i.e. 5-10 times faster than it was estimated earlier, in a strongly nonequilibrium way.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, 3 eps figure

Open-charm enhancement at FAIR?

We have calculated the D-meson spectral density at finite temperature within a self-consistent coupled-channel approach that generates dynamically the $\Lambda_c$ (2593) resonance. We find a small mass shift for the D-meson in this hot and dense medium while the spectral density develops a sizeable width. The reduced attraction felt by the D-meson in hot and dense matter together with the large width observed have important consequences for the D-meson production in the future CBM experiment at FAIR.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of 9th International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM2006), Los Angeles, USA, March 26-31, 200

Supercooling of rapidly expanding quark-gluon plasma

We reexamine the scenario of homogeneous nucleation of the quark-gluon plasma produced in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. A generalization of the standard nucleation theory to rapidly expanding system is proposed. The nucleation rate is derived via the new scaling parameter Z. It is shown that the size distribution of hadronic clusters plays an important role in the dynamics of the phase transition. The longitudinally expanding system is supercooled to about 3 6%, then it is reheated, and the hadronization is completed within 6 10 fm/c, i.e. 5 10 times faster than it was estimated earlier, in a strongly nonequilibrium way. PACS: 12.38.Mh; 12.39.Ba; 25.75.-q; 64.60.Q