Dissipation, noise and DCC domain formation

We investigate the effect of friction on domain formation in disoriented chiral condensate. We solve the equation of motion of the linear sigma model, in the Hartree approximation, including a friction and a white noise term. For quenched initial condition, we find that even in presence of noise and dissipation domain like structure emerges after a few fermi of evolution. Domain size as large as 5 fm can be formed.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Effect of friction on disoriented chiral condensate formation

We have investigated the effect of friction on the DCC domain formation. We solve the Newton equation of motion for the O(4) fields, with quenched initial condition. The initial fields are randomly distributed in a Gaussian form. In one dimensional expansion, on the average, large DCC domains can not be formed. However, in some particular orbits, large instabilities may occur. This possibility also greatly diminishes with the introduction of friction. But, if the friction is large, the system may be overdamped and then, there is a possibility of large DCC domain formation in some events.Comment: 9 pages, including figure

How to Make Large Domains of Disoriented Chiral Condensate

Rajagopal and Wilczek have proposed that relativistic nuclear collisions can generate domains in which the chiral condensate is disoriented. If sufficiently large ({\it i.e.} nucleus sized), such domains can yield measurable fluctuations in the number of neutral and charged pions. However, by numerical simulation of the zero-temperature two-flavor linear sigma model, we find that domains are essentially {\it pion} sized. Nevertheless, we show that large domains can occur if the effective mesons masses are much lighter.Comment: 6 pages and 2 postscript figures, BNL-GGP-

Measuring the Charged Particle Multiplicity with ALICE

The charged particle multiplicity distribution is one of the first measurements that ALICE will be able to perform. The knowledge of this basic property at a new energy is needed to configure Monte Carlo generators correctly with the aim of understanding the background of other, especially rare, processes including new physics. It allows to study the scaling behaviour and to verify model predictions. The unfolding of the measurement is a non-trivial task due to the finite precision and acceptance of the detector. Solutions are based on chi2 minimization or iteratively using Bayes' theorem. Both approaches to unfold the spectrum are presented. Furthermore, the capabilities of the SPD fast OR trigger are shown that enable physics at very high multiplicities.Comment: Proceedings of poster presentation at Quark Matter 2008, 20th International Conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions in Jaipur, India; to be published in Indian Journal of Physics; 4 pages, 4 figure

Probing small-x parton densities in proton- proton (-nucleus) collisions in the very forward direction

We present calculations of several pp scattering cross sections with potential applications at the LHC. Significantly large rates for momentum fraction, x, as low as 10^-7 are obtained, allowing for possible extraction of quark and gluon densities in the proton and nuclei down to these small x values provided a detector with good acceptance at maximal rapidities is used.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX, 12 figures, uses revtex.st

Kinetic description of hadron-hadron collisions

A transport model based on the mean free path approach to describe pp collisions is proposed. We assume that hadrons can be treated as bags of partons similarly to the MIT bag model. When the energy density in the collision is higher than a critical value, the bags break and partons are liberated. The partons expand and can make coalescence to form new hadrons. The results obtained compare very well with available data and some prediction for higher energies collisions are discussed. Based on the model we suggest that a QGP could already be formed in the pp collisions at high energies

Relating high-energy lepton-hadron, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions through geometric scaling

A characteristic feature of small-x lepton-proton data from HERA is geometric scaling -- the fact that over a wide range of x and Q^2 all data can be described by a single variable $Q^2/Q_{sat}^2(x)$, with all x-dependence encoded in the so-called saturation momentum $Q_{sat}(x)$. Here, we observe that the same scaling ansatz accounts for nuclear photoabsorption cross sections and favors the nuclear dependence $Q_{sat,A}^2\propto A^{\alpha}Q_{sat}^2$, $\alpha \simeq 4/9$. We then make the empirical finding that the same A-dependence accounts for the centrality evolution of the multiplicities measured in Au+Au collisions at RHIC. It also allows to parametrize the high-p_t particle suppression in d+Au collisions at forward rapidities. If these geometric scaling properties have a common dynamical origin, then this A-dependence of $Q_{sat,A}^2$ should emerge as a consequence of the underlying dynamical model.Comment: 4 pages, 3 postscript figure

Parton Branching in Color Mutation Model

The soft production problem in hadronic collisions as described in the eikonal color mutation branching model is improved in the way that the initial parton distribution is treated. Furry branching of the partons is considered as a means of describing the nonperturbative process of parton reproduction in soft interaction. The values of all the moments, and $C_q$, for q=2,...,5, as well as their energy dependences can be correctly determined by the use of only two parameters.Comment: 8 pages (LaTeX) + 2 figures (ps files), submitted to Phys. Rev.

What it takes to measure a fundamental difference between dark matter and baryons: the halo velocity anisotropy

Numerous ongoing experiments aim at detecting WIMP dark matter particles from the galactic halo directly through WIMP-nucleon interactions. Once such a detection is established a confirmation of the galactic origin of the signal is needed. This requires a direction-sensitive detector. We show that such a detector can measure the velocity anisotropy beta of the galactic halo. Cosmological N-body simulations predict the dark matter anisotropy to be nonzero, beta~0.2. Baryonic matter has beta=0 and therefore a detection of a nonzero beta would be strong proof of the fundamental difference between dark and baryonic matter. We estimate the sensitivity for various detector configurations using Monte Carlo methods and we show that the strongest signal is found in the relatively few high recoil energy events. Measuring beta to the precision of ~0.03 will require detecting more than 10^4 WIMP events with nuclear recoil energies greater than 100 keV for a WIMP mass of 100 GeV and a 32S target. This number corresponds to ~10^6 events at all energies. We discuss variations with respect to input parameters and we show that our method is robust to the presence of backgrounds and discuss the possible improved sensitivity for an energy-sensitive detector.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, accepted by JCAP. Matches accepted versio

Can Disordered Chiral Condensates Form? A Dynamical Perspective

We address the issue of whether a region of disordered chiral condensate (DCC), in which the chiral condensate has components along the pion directions, can form. We consider a system going through the chiral phase transition either via a quench, or via relaxation of the high temperature phase to the low temperature one within a given time scale (of order $\sim 1 \rm{fm/c}$). We use a density matrix based formalism that takes both thermal and quantum fluctuations into account non-perturbatively to argue that if the $O(4)$ linear sigma model is the correct way to model the situation in QCD, then it is very unlikely at least in the Hartree approximation, that a large ($> 10\ \rm{fm}$) DCC region will form. Typical sizes of such regions are $\sim 1 -2 \ \rm{fm}$ and the density of pions in such regions is at most of order $\sim 0.2 / \rm{fm}^3$. We end with some speculations on how large DCC regions may be formed.Comment: 21 pages LATEX, 12 figures available upon request via regular mail, PITT-94-0