Study of Correlations of Heavy Quarks in Heavy Ion Collisions and Their Role in Understanding the Mechanisms of Energy Loss in the Quark Gluon Plasma

Download or read book Study of Correlations of Heavy Quarks in Heavy Ion Collisions and Their Role in Understanding the Mechanisms of Energy Loss in the Quark Gluon Plasma written by Martin Rohrmoser and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Context: Quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong interactions, predicts a new state of matter, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), where its fundamental degrees of freedom, the quarks and gluons, behave quasi-freely. The required high temperatures and/orparticle densities can be expected for the early stages of the universe and in neutron stars, but have lately become accessible by highly energetic collisions of heavy ion cores. Commonly, these experiments study the QGP by the detection of hard probes, i.e. highly energetic particles, most notably heavy quarks, that pass the medium. The mechanisms of their energy-loss in the QGP are not yet completely understood. In particular, they are attributed to processes of either additional, medium induced radiation or 2 to 2 particle scattering, or combinations thereof.Methods: In a theoretical, phenomenological approach to search for new observables that allow discriminating between these collisional and radiative energy-loss mechanisms a Monte-Carlo algorithm that simulates the formation of particle cascades from an initial particle was implemented. For the medium, different types of QGP-jet interactions, corresponding to collisional and/orradiative energy loss, were introduced. Correlations between pairs of final cascade particles, where one represents a heavy trigger quark, were investigated as a means to differentiate between these models.Findings: The dependence of angular opening for two particle correlations as a function of particle energy may provide a means to disentangle collisional and radiative mechanisms of in-medium energy loss.