Strangeness, charm, and bottom production from dense parton matter in high energy nuclear collisions

Journal Article · Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 EST 1993 · Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.48.4129· OSTI ID:6131385

Geiger, K ^[1]

---

1. 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), Vol. 48:9; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
HEAVY ION REACTIONS
PARTON MODEL
CASCADE THEORY
CHARM PARTICLES
MULTIPLICITY
PLASMA
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
SPACE-TIME
STRANGENESS
VECTOR MESONS
BOSONS
CHARGED-PARTICLE REACTIONS
COMPOSITE MODELS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FIELD THEORIES
HADRONS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MESONS
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
PARTICLE MODELS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
663450* - Heavy-Ion-Induced Reactions & Scattering- (1992-)
662230 - Quantum Chromodynamics- (1992-)
663300 - Nuclear Reactions & Scattering
General- (1992-)