Direct Photon Production in High-Energy Heavy Ion Collisions within the Integrated Hydrokinetic Model

The results on description of direct photon yields, transverse momentum spectra, and flow harmonics, measured in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for different collision centrality classes, analyzed within the Integrated Hydrokinetic Model (iHKM) are reviewed. The iHKM simulation results, corresponding to the two opposite approaches to the matter evolution treatment at the final stage of the system’s expansion within the model, namely, the chemically equilibrated and the chemically frozen evolution, are compared. The so-called “direct photon puzzle” is addressed, and its possible solution, suggesting the account for additional photon emission at confinement, is considered.

Strangeness Enhancement at LHC Energies Using the Thermal Model and EPOSLHC Event Generator

The strangeness enhancement signature of QGP formation at LHC energies is carefully tackled in the present study. Based on HRG, the particle ratios of mainly strange and multistrange particles are studied at energies from lower s ~ 0.001 up to 13 TeV. The strangeness enhancement clearly appeared at more high energies, and the ratios are confronted to the available experimental data. The particle ratios are also studied using the Cosmic Ray Monte Carlo (CRMC) interface model with its two different event generators, namely, EPOS 1.99 and EPOSlhc, which show a good agreement with the model calculations at the whole range of the energy. We utilize them to produce some particles ratios. EPOS 1.99 is used to estimate particle ratios at lower energies from AGS up to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) while EPOSlhc is used at LHC energies. The production of kaons and lambda particles is studied in terms of the mean multiplicity in p-p collisions at energies ranging from 4 to 26 GeV. We find that both HRG model and the used event generators, EPOS 1.99 and EPOSlhc, can describe the particle ratios very well. Additionally, the freeze-out parameters are estimated for different collision systems, such as p-p and Pb-Pb, at LHC energies using both models.

Charged pion, kaon, proton and antiproton production in large collision systems

The main goal of PHENIX expirement, located at Relativistic Heavy-ion collider, is the investigation of quark-gluon plasma (QGP). One of the aspects of the QGP study is describing the process of its hadronization. Very important contribution to understanding of hadronization process was given by discovering of anomaly large ratio of protons production to pions production (ρ/π) in Au+Au collisions in comparison to the same ratio in proton-proton collisions. This effect was called baryon puzzle and was explained in a frame of recombination model of hadronization. Although charged hadrons production has been previously studied in elementary proton-proton collisions and symmetric Au+Au collisions, it has never been investigated before in the large asymmetric collisions systems (such as Cu+Au) or the collisions of large deformed nuclei (U+U). The study of such large collisions systems allows to study features of baryon and meson production versus collision geometry and system size.

Implementation of ACTS into sPHENIX Track Reconstruction

AbstractsPHENIX is a high energy nuclear physics experiment under construction at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The primary physics goals of sPHENIX are to study the quark-gluon-plasma, as well as the partonic structure of protons and nuclei, by measuring jets, their substructure, and heavy flavor hadrons in $$p$$ p $$+$$ + $$p$$ p , p + Au, and Au + Au collisions. sPHENIX will collect approximately 300 PB of data over three run periods, to be analyzed using available computing resources at BNL; thus, performing track reconstruction in a timely manner is a challenge due to the high occupancy of heavy ion collision events. The sPHENIX experiment has recently implemented the A Common Tracking Software (ACTS) track reconstruction toolkit with the goal of reconstructing tracks with high efficiency and within a computational budget of 5 s per minimum bias event. This paper reports the performance status of ACTS as the default track fitting tool within sPHENIX, including discussion of the first implementation of a time projection chamber geometry within ACTS.

Exploring sQGP and small systems

A strongly coupled Quark–Gluon Plasma (sQGP) is created in the high-energy heavy-ion collisions at Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Our present understanding of sQGP as a very good liquid with astonishingly low viscosity is reviewed. With the arrival of the interesting results from LHC in high-energy [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], a new endeavor to characterize the transition from these small systems to heavy ions [Formula: see text] is now in place, since even the small systems showed prominent similarities to heavy ions in the rising multiplicity domains. An outlook of future possibilities for better measurements is also made at the end of this brief review.