Strangeness, charm, and bottom production from dense parton matter in high energy nuclear collisions
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 (United States)
The production properties of strange, charm, and bottom quarks in ultrarelativistic [ital A]+[ital A] collisions at heavy ion colliders are investigated for systems from [ital p]+[ital p] to Au+Au in the energy range [radical][ital s] /[ital A]=200--6300 GeV, using the parton cascade model. Within this kinetic space-time description of the parton dynamics, based on the current understanding of semihard and hard QCD interactions, it is found that a substantial enhancement of [ital s], [ital c], and [ital b] production can be expected in [ital AA] collisions [ital with] plasma formation of the deconfined parton matter relative to the case of a purely hadronic scenario [ital without] plasma formation. Because of the large number of initially produced energetic gluons the main contribution comes from decays of virtually excited gluons and gluon fusion. The associated resonance production of [phi], [ital J]/[psi], and [Upsilon] is estimated and it is shown that the resulting abundances of these vector mesons can be used as a sensitive thermometer of the hot and dense QCD matter formed in the central region durng the very early stage of the collisions. Therefore the future heavy ion collider experiments would have an attractive opportunity to probe the evolution of partons through preequilibrium toward plasma formation by measuring the multiplicities and momentum spectra of heavy mesons.
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-87ER40328
- OSTI ID:
- 6131385
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States), Journal Name: Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States) Vol. 48:9; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
663300 -- Nuclear Reactions & Scattering
General-- (1992-)
663450* -- Heavy-Ion-Induced Reactions & Scattering-- (1992-)
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
BOSONS
CASCADE THEORY
CHARGED-PARTICLE REACTIONS
CHARM PARTICLES
COMPOSITE MODELS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FIELD THEORIES
HADRONS
HEAVY ION REACTIONS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MESONS
MULTIPLICITY
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
PARTICLE MODELS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
PARTON MODEL
PLASMA
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
SPACE-TIME
STRANGENESS
VECTOR MESONS