Signals of spinodal phase decomposition in high-energy nuclear collisions

High-energy nuclear collisions produce quark-gluon plasmas that expand and hadronize. If the associated phase transition is of first order then the hadronization should proceed through a spinodal phase separation. We explore here the possibility of identifying the associated clumping by analysis of suitable N-particle momentum correlations.Comment: 7 pages, incl 4 ps figure

Probing chiral dynamics by charged-pion correlations

The environment generated in the mid-rapidity region of a high-energy nuclear collision endows the pionic degrees of freedom with a time-dependent effective mass. Its specific evolution provides a mechanism for the production of back-to-back charge-conjugate pairs of soft pions which may present an observable signal of the non-equilibrium dynamics of the chiral order parameter.Comment: revtex body and 3 eps figures (4 pages total

Quantum Field Treatment of DCC Dynamics

A practical quantum-field treatment is developed for systems endowed with an effective mass function depending on both space and time and a schematic application illustrates the quantitative importance of quantum fluctuations in the dynamics of disoriented chiral condensates.Comment: revtex body and 4 eps figures (4 pages total

Spin-Isospin Modes in Heavy-Ion Collisions I: Nuclear Matter at Finite Temperatures

With a view towards implementation in microscopic transport simulations of heavy-ion collisions, the properties of spin-isospin modes are studied in nuclear matter consisting of nucleons and Delta isobars that interact by the exchange of pi and rho mesons. For a standard p-wave interaction and an effective g' short-range interaction, the dispersion relations for the spin- isospin modes, and the associated amplitudes, are calculated at various nuclear densities and temperatures, within the random-phase approximation. Quantities of physical interest are then extracted, including the total and partial Delta decay widths and the Delta cross sections in the nuclear medium. The self-consistent inclusion of the Delta width has a strong effect on the Delta cross sections at twice normal nuclear density, as compared with the result of ignoring the width. Generally, the obtained quantities exhibit a strong density dependence, but are fairly insensitive to the temperature, at least up to T=25 MeV. Finally, it is described how these in-medium effects may be consistently included into microscopic transport simulations of nuclear collisions, and the improvements over previous approaches are discussed.Comment: LaTeX 47 pages, 17 postscript figures in accompanying uuencoded fil

Brownian shape motion on five-dimensional potential-energy surfaces: Nuclear fission-fragment mass distributions

Although nuclear fission can be understood qualitatively as an evolution of the nuclear shape, a quantitative description has proven to be very elusive. In particular, until now, there exists no model with demonstrated predictive power for the fission fragment mass yields. Exploiting the expected strongly damped character of nuclear dynamics, we treat the nuclear shape evolution in analogy with Brownian motion and perform random walks on five-dimensional fission potential-energy surfaces which were calculated previously and are the most comprehensive available. Test applications give good reproduction of highly variable experimental mass yields. This novel general approach requires only a single new global parameter, namely the critical neck size at which the mass split is frozen in, and the results are remarkably insensitive to its specific value.Comment: 4 pages, 2 ps figure

Inclusion of Quantum Fluctuations in Wave Packet Dynamics

We discuss a method by which quantum fluctuations can be included in microscopic transport models based on wave packets that are not energy eigenstates. By including the next-to-leading order term in the cumulant expansion of the statistical weight, which corresponds to the wave packets having Poisson energy distributions, we obtain a much improved global description of the quantum statistical properties of the many-body system. In the case of atomic nuclei, exemplified by 12C and 40Ca, the standard liquid-drop results are reproduced at low temperatures and a phase transformation to a fragment gas occurs as the temperature is raised. The treatment can be extended to dynamical scenarios by means of a Langevin force emulating the transitions between the wave packets. The general form of the associated transport coefficients is derived and it is shown that the appropriate microcanonical equilibrium distribution is achieved in the course of the time evolution. Finally, invoking Fermi's golden rule, we derive specific expressions for the transport coefficients and verify that they satisfy the fluctuation-dissipation theorem.Comment: uuencoded revtex body and 8 ps figures (16 pages total