Current Science

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Charming charm, beautiful bottom and quark–gluon plasma in the Large Hadron Collider era


Affiliations
1 Indian Institute of Technology Goa 403 401, India
2 Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India; and CERN, CH 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland
 

After a few microseconds of the creation of our Universe through the Big Bang, the primordial matter was believed to be a soup of the fundamental constituents of matter – quarks and gluons. This is expected to be created in the laboratory by colliding heavy nuclei at ultra-relativistic speeds. A plasma of quarks and gluons, called quark–gluon plasma (QGP) can be created at the energy and luminosity frontiers in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, at Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, USA, and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. Heavy quarks, namely the charm and bottom quarks, are considered as novel probes to characterize QGP, and hence the produced quantum chromodynamics matter. Heavy quark transport coefficients play a significant role in understanding the properties of QGP. Experimental measurements of nuclear suppression factor and elliptic flow can constrain the heavy quark transport coefficients, which are key ingredients for phenomenological studies, and they help to disentangle different energy loss mechanisms. We give a general perspective of the heavy quark drag and diffusion coefficients in QGP and discuss their potentials as probes to disentangle different hadronization mechanisms, as well as to probe the initial electromagnetic fields produced in non-central heavy-ion collisions. Experimental perspectives on future measurements are discussed with special emphasis on heavy flavours as the next-generation probes in view of new technological developments

Keywords

Big Bang, heavy-ion collisions, heavy flavours, quark–gluon plasma.
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • Jacak, B. V. and Muller, B., The exploration of hot nuclear matter. Science, 2012, 337, 310–314.

  • Rapp, R. et al., Extraction of Heavy–Flavor transport coefficients in QCD matter. Nucl. Phys. A, 2018, 979, 21–86.

  • Dong, X. and Greco, V., Heavy quark production and properties of Quark–Gluon Plasma. Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys., 2019, 104, 97–141.

  • Cao, S. et al., Toward the determination of heavy-quark transport coefficients in quark-gluon plasma. Phys. Rev. C, 2019, 99, 054907.

  • Abelev, B. et al. (STAR Collaboration), Transverse momentum and centrality dependence of high-pT nonphotonic electron suppression in Au + Au collisions at ªsNN = 200 GeV. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2007, 98, 192301.

  • Adler, S. S. et al. (PHENIX Collaboration), Nuclear modification of electron spectra and implications for heavy quark energy loss in Au + Au collisions at ªsNN =200 GeV. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2006, 96, 032301.

  • Adare, A. et al. (PHENIX Collaboration), Energy loss and flow of heavy quarks in Au + Au collisions at ªsNN = 200 GeV. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2007, 98, 172301.

  • Abelev, B. et al. (ALICE Collaboration), Azimuthal anisotropy of D-meson production in Pb–Pb collisions at ªsNN = 2.76 TeV. Phys. Rev. C, 2014, 90, 034904.

  • Das, S. K., Scardina, F., Plumari, S. and Greco, V., Plumari, S. and Greco, V., Toward a solution to the RAA and v2 puzzle for heavy quarks. Phys. Lett. B, 2015, 747, 260–264.

  • Cao, S., Luo, T., Qin, G. Y. and Wang, X. N., Linearized Boltzmann transport model for jet propagation in the quark-gluon plasma: heavy quark evolution. Phys. Rev. C, 2016, 94, 014909.

  • Xu, Y., Bernhard, J. E., Bass, S. A., Nahrgang, M. and Cao, S., Data-driven analysis for the temperature and momentum dependence of the heavy-quark diffusion coefficient in relativistic heavyion collisions. Phys. Rev. C, 2018, 97, 014907.

  • Greco, V., Ko, C. M. and Rapp, R., Quark coalescence for charmed mesons in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. Phys. Lett. B, 2004, 595, 202–208.

  • Plumari, S., Minissale, V., Das, S. K., Coci, G. and Greco, V., Charmed hadrons from coalescence plus fragmentation in relativistic nucleus–nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC. Eur. Phys. J., C, 2018, 78, 348.

  • He, M. and Rapp, R., Hadronization and Charm–Hadron ratios in heavy-ion collisions. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2020, 124, 042301.

  • Adam, J. et al. (STAR Collaboration), First measurement of Λc Baryon production in Au + Au collisions at ªsNN = 200 GeV. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2020, 124, 172301.

  • Das, S. K., Plumari, S., Chatterjee, S., Alam, J., Scardina, F. and Greco, V., Directed flow of charm quarks as a witness of the initial strong magnetic field in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. Phys. Lett. B, 2017, 768, 260–264.

  • Acharya, S. et al. (ALICE Collaboration), Probing the effects of strong electromagnetic fields with charge-dependent directed flow in Pb–Pb collisions at the LHC. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2020, 125, 022301.

  • Adam, J. et al. (STAR Collaboration), First observation of the directed flow of D0 and 0 D in Au + Au collisions at ªsNN = 200 GeV. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2019, 123, 162301.

  • Weibel, E. S., Spontaneously growing transverse waves in a plasma due to an anisotropic velocity distribution. Phys. Rev. Lett., 1959, 2, 83; Abe, T. and Niu, K., Anomalous viscosity in turbulent plasma due to electromagnetic instability. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn., 1980, 49, 717–724; Anomalous viscosity in turbulent plasma due to electromagnetic instability. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn., 1980, 49, 725–729.

  • Chandra, V. and Das, S. K., Impact of momentum space anisotropy on heavy quark dynamics in a QGP medium. Phys. Rev. D, 2016, 93, 094036.

  • Ruggieri, M. and Das, S. K., Cathode tube effect: heavy quarks probing the glasma in p-Pb collisions. Phys. Rev. D, 2018, 98, 094024.

  • Expression of interest for an ALICE ITS Upgrade in LS3 (ALICEPUBLIC-2018-013); http://cds.cern.ch/record/2644611 (accessed on 15 September 2021).

  • Citron, Z. et al., Future physics opportunities for high-density QCD at the LHC with heavy-ion and proton beams. CERN Yellow Rep. Monogr., 2019, 7, 1159–1410.

  • Sahoo, R., Possible formation of QGP-droplets in proton–proton collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. AAPPS Bull., 2019, 29, 16–21.

  • https://fcc-cdr.web.cern.ch/ (accessed on 6 October 2021).

  • Sahoo, R. and Nayak, T. K., Possible early universe signals in proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. Curr. Sci. (in press).

  • Scardina, F., Das, S. K., Minissale, V., Plumari, S. and Greco, V., Estimating the charm quark diffusion coefficient and thermalization time from D meson spectra at energies available at the BNL relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Phys. Rev. C, 2017, 96, 044905.


Abstract Views: 288

PDF Views: 116




  • Charming charm, beautiful bottom and quark–gluon plasma in the Large Hadron Collider era

Abstract Views: 288  |  PDF Views: 116

Authors

Santosh K. Das
Indian Institute of Technology Goa 403 401, India
Raghunath Sahoo
Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India; and CERN, CH 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland

Abstract


After a few microseconds of the creation of our Universe through the Big Bang, the primordial matter was believed to be a soup of the fundamental constituents of matter – quarks and gluons. This is expected to be created in the laboratory by colliding heavy nuclei at ultra-relativistic speeds. A plasma of quarks and gluons, called quark–gluon plasma (QGP) can be created at the energy and luminosity frontiers in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, at Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, USA, and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. Heavy quarks, namely the charm and bottom quarks, are considered as novel probes to characterize QGP, and hence the produced quantum chromodynamics matter. Heavy quark transport coefficients play a significant role in understanding the properties of QGP. Experimental measurements of nuclear suppression factor and elliptic flow can constrain the heavy quark transport coefficients, which are key ingredients for phenomenological studies, and they help to disentangle different energy loss mechanisms. We give a general perspective of the heavy quark drag and diffusion coefficients in QGP and discuss their potentials as probes to disentangle different hadronization mechanisms, as well as to probe the initial electromagnetic fields produced in non-central heavy-ion collisions. Experimental perspectives on future measurements are discussed with special emphasis on heavy flavours as the next-generation probes in view of new technological developments

Keywords


Big Bang, heavy-ion collisions, heavy flavours, quark–gluon plasma.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv121%2Fi9%2F1156-1161