Giorgio Torrieri

Instability of Boost-invariant hydrodynamics with a QCD inspired bulk viscosity

We solve the relativistic Navier-Stokes equations with homogeneous boost-invariant boundary conditions, and perform a stability analysis of the solution. We show that, if the bulk viscosity has a peak around Tc as inferred from QCD-based arguments, the background solution ”freezes” at Tc to a nearly constant temperature state. This state is however highly unstable with respect to certain inhomogeneous modes. Calculations show that these modes have enough time to blow up and tear the system into droplets. We conjecture that this is how freeze-out occurs in the QGP created in heavy ion collisions, and perhaps similar transitions in the early universe.

Bulk viscosity driven clusterization of quark-gluon plasma and early freeze-out in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We introduce a new scenario for heavy ion collisions that could solve the lingering problems associated with the so-called Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) puzzle. We postulate that the system starts expansion as the perfect quark-gluon fluid but close to freeze-out it splits into clusters, due to a sharp rise of bulk viscosity in the vicinity of the hadronization transition. We then argue that the characteristic cluster size is determined by the viscosity coefficient and the expansion rate. Typically it is much smaller and at most weakly dependent of the total system volume (hence reaction energy and multiplicity). These clusters maintain the pre-existing outward-going flow, as a spray of droplets, but develop no flow of their own, and hadronize by evaporation. We provide an ansatz for converting the hydrodynamic output into clusters.

The Hawking-Page crossover in noncommutative anti-deSitter space

We study the problem of a Schwarzschild-anti-deSitter black hole in a non-commutative geometry framework, thought to be an effective description of quantum-gravitational spacetime. As a first step we derive the noncommutative geometry inspired Schwarzschild-anti-deSitter solution. After studying the horizon structure, we find that the curvature singularity is smeared out by the noncommutative fluctuations. On the thermodynamics side, we show that the black hole temperature, instead of a divergent behavior at small scales, admits a maximum value. This fact implies an extension of the Hawking-Page transition into a van der Waals-like phase diagram, with a critical point at a critical cosmological constant size in Plank units and a smooth crossover thereafter. We speculate that, in the gauge-string dictionary, this corresponds to the confinement “critical point” in number of colors at finite number of flavors, a highly non-trivial parameter that can be determined through lattice simulations.

Anomalous conical di-jet correlations in pQCD vs AdS/CFT

Abstract We propose an identified heavy quark jet observable to discriminate between weakly coupled pQCD and strongly coupled AdS/CFT models of quark–gluon plasma dynamics in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions at RHIC and LHC energies. These models are shown to predict qualitatively different associated hadron correlations with respect to tagged heavy quark jets. While both models feature similar far zone Mach and diffusion wakes, the far zone stress features are shown to be too weak to survive thermal broadening at hadron freeze-out. However, these models differ significantly in a near zone “Neck” region where strong chromo-fields sourced by the heavy quark jet couple to the polarizable plasma. Conical associated correlations, if any, are shown to be dominated by the jet induced transverse flow in the Neck zone and unrelated to the weak far zone wakes. Unlike in AdS/CFT, we show that the induced transverse flow in the Neck zone is too weak in pQCD to produce conical correlations after Cooper–Frye freeze-out. The observation of conical correlations violating Machs law would favor the strongly-coupled AdS/CFT string drag dynamics, while their absence would favor weakly-coupled pQCD-based chromo-hydrodynamics.

Di-jet conical correlations associated with heavy quark jets in anti-de sitter space/conformal field theory correspondence.

We show that far zone Mach and diffusion wake holograms produced by supersonic strings in anti-de Sitter space/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence do not lead to observable conical angular correlations in the strict N_{c}-->infinity supergravity limit if Cooper-Frye hadronization is assumed. However, a special nonequilibrium neck zone near the jet is shown to produce an apparent sonic boom azimuthal angle distribution that is roughly independent of the heavy quarks velocity. Our results indicate that a measurement of the dependence of the away-side correlations on the velocity of associated identified heavy quark jets at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and CERN LHC will provide a direct test of the nonperturbative dynamics involved in the coupling between jets and the strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma implied by AdS/CFT correspondence.

Forward-backward correlations in nucleus-nucleus collisions: Baseline contributions from geometrical fluctuations

We discuss the effects of initial collision geometry and centrality bin definition on correlation and fluctuation observables in nucleus-nucleus collisions. We focus on the forward-backward correlation coefficient recently measured by the STAR Collaboration in Au+Au collisions at RHIC. Our study is carried out within two models: the Glauber Monte Carlo code with a toy wounded-nucleon model and the hadron-string dynamics (HSD) transport approach. We show that strong correlations can arise from averaging over events in one centrality bin. We, furthermore, argue that a study of the dependence of correlations on the centrality bin definition as well as the bin size may distinguish between these trivial correlations and correlations arising from new physics.

Coupling relativistic viscous hydrodynamics to Boltzmann descriptions

Models of relativistic heavy-ion collisions typically involve both a hydrodynamic module to describe the high-density liquidlike phase and a Boltzmann module to simulate the low-density breakup phase, which is gaslike. Coupling the prescriptions is more complicated for viscous prescriptions if one wants to maintain continuity of the entire stress-energy tensor and currents. Derivations for the viscosity for a gas are reviewed, which then lead to expressions for changes in the phase-space occupation based on simple relaxation-time pictures of viscosity. These expressions are shown to consistently reproduce the nonequilibrium components of the stress-energy tensor. An algorithm for generating a Monte Carlo sampling of particles with which to initiate the Boltzmann calculations is also presented.

Jet Propagation and Mach Cones in (3+1)d Ideal Hydrodynamics

The observation of jet quenching and associated away--side Mach cone--like correlations at RHIC provide powerful ``external probes of the sQGP produced in A+A reactions, but it simultaneously raises the question where the jet energy was deposited. The nearly perfect bulk fluidity observed via elliptic flow suggests that Mach cone--like correlations may also be due to rapid local equilibration in the wake of penetrating jets. Multi-particle correlations lend further support to this possibility. However, a combined study of energy deposition and fluid response is needed. We solve numerically 3--dimensional ideal hydrodynamical equations to compute the flow correlation patterns resulting from a variety of possible energy-momentum deposition models. Mach--cone correlations are shown to depend critically on the energy and momentum deposition mechanisms. They only survive for a special limited class of energy--momentum loss models, which assume significantly less longitudinal momentum loss than energy loss per unit length. We conclude that the correct interpretation of away--side jet correlations will require improved understanding and independent experimental constraints on the jet energy--momentum loss to fluid couplings.

Near zone hydrodynamics of AdS/CFT jet wakes

The energy-momentum tensor of a supersonic heavy quark jet moving through a strongly coupled N = 4 SYM plasma is analyzed in terms of first-order Navier-Stokes hydrodynamics. We focus on the near zone head region close to the heavy quark where deviations from hydrodynamic behavior are expected to be large. For realistic quark velocities, v = 0.99, we find that the non-hydrodynamical head region is confined at a narrow pancake surrounding the jet with a width ∼ 1 /T and transverse radius ∼3 / T. Outside this jet head region, the jet induced stress is well approximated by Navier-Stokes hydrodynamics.

Statistical hadronization phenomenology in K/ fluctuations at ultra-relativistic energies

We discuss the information that can be obtained from an analysis of fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions within the context of the statistical model of particle production. We then examine the recently published experimental data on ratio fluctuations, and use it to obtain constraints on the statistical properties (physically relevant ensemble, degree of chemical equilibration, scaling across energies and system sizes) and freeze-out dynamics (amount of reinteraction between chemical and thermal freeze-out) of the system.