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Title: Global Λ hyperon polarization in nuclear collisions

Journal Article · · Nature (London)
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/nature23004· OSTI ID:1392218
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The extreme energy densities generated by ultra-relativistic collisions between heavy atomic nuclei produce a state of matter that behaves surprisingly like a fluid, with exceptionally high temperature and low viscosity. Non-central collisions have angular momenta of the order of 1,000h, and the resulting fluid may have a strong vortical structure that must be understood to describe the fluid properly. The vortical structure is also of particular interest because the restoration of fundamental symmetries of quantum chromodynamics is expected to produce novel physical effects in the presence of strong vorticity. However, no experimental indications of fluid vorticity in heavy ion collisions have yet been found. Since vorticity represents a local rotational structure of the fluid, spin-orbit coupling can lead to preferential orientation of particle spins along the direction of rotation. Here we present measurements of an alignment between the global angular momentum of a non-central collision and the spin of emitted particles (in this case the collision occurs between gold nuclei and produces Λ baryons), revealing that the fluid produced in heavy ion collisions is the most vortical system so far observed. (At high energies, this fluid is a quark-gluon plasma.) We find that Λ and hyperons show a positive polarization of the order of a few per cent, consistent with some hydrodynamic predictions. (A hyperon is a particle composed of three quarks, at least one of which is a strange quark; the remainder are up and down quarks, found in protons and neutrons.) A previous measurement that reported a null result, that is, zero polarization, at higher collision energies is seen to be consistent with the trend of our observations, though with larger statistical uncertainties. These data provide experimental access to the vortical structure of the nearly ideal liquid created in a heavy ion collision and should prove valuable in the development of hydrodynamic models that quantitatively connect observations to the theory of the strong force.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States). Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
Contributing Organization:
STAR Collaboration; The STAR Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012704; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1392218
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1532256
Report Number(s):
BNL-114181-2017-JA; R&D Project: PO 004; KB0202012
Journal Information:
Nature (London), Vol. 548, Issue 7665; ISSN 0028-0836
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 392 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Off-equilibrium infrared structure of self-interacting scalar fields: Universal scaling, vortex-antivortex superfluid dynamics, and Bose-Einstein condensation journal May 2018
Estimates of hyperon polarization in heavy-ion collisions at collision energies s N N = 4 40 GeV journal July 2019
Feed-down effect on Λ spin polarization journal July 2019
Longitudinal spin polarization in a thermal model journal November 2019
Microscopic description for polarization in particle scattering journal December 2019
Lattice-based equation of state at finite baryon number, electric charge, and strangeness chemical potentials journal December 2019
Relaxation time for strange quark spin in rotating quark-gluon plasma journal February 2020
Λ hyperon polarization in relativistic heavy ion collisions from a chiral kinetic approach journal August 2017
Global Λ polarization in heavy-ion collisions from a transport model journal November 2017
Relativistic fluid dynamics with spin journal April 2018
Global polarization of Λ hyperons in Au + Au collisions at s N N = 200 GeV journal July 2018
Azimuthal anisotropy in Cu+Au collisions at s NN = 200 GeV journal July 2018
Probing vorticity structure in heavy-ion collisions by local Λ polarization journal August 2018
Azimuthal angle dependence of the longitudinal spin polarization in relativistic heavy ion collisions journal January 2019
Thermal vorticity and spin polarization in heavy-ion collisions journal January 2019
Λ and Λ ¯ spin interaction with meson fields generated by the baryon current in high energy nuclear collisions journal February 2019
Effect of magnetic fields on pairs of oppositely charged particles in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions journal April 2019
Chiral vortical effect in Wigner function approach journal July 2019
Kinetic theory for massive spin 1 / 2 particles from the Wigner-function formalism journal September 2019
Relativistic quantum kinetic theory for massive fermions and spin effects journal September 2019
Quantum kinetic theory of spin polarization of massive quarks in perturbative QCD: Leading log journal September 2019
Rotation induced charged pion condensation in a strong magnetic field: A Nambu–Jona-Lasino model study journal November 2019
Axial kinetic theory and spin transport for fermions with arbitrary mass journal November 2019
Chiral vortices and pseudoscalar condensation due to rotation journal December 2019
Finite-density QCD transition in a magnetic background field journal December 2019
Accelerated and decelerated expansion in a causal dissipative cosmology journal December 2017
Thermodynamic equilibrium with acceleration and the Unruh effect journal April 2018
Bulk viscosity of a hot QCD medium in a strong magnetic field within the relaxation-time approximation journal June 2018
Disentangling covariant Wigner functions for chiral fermions journal August 2018
Chiral magnetic effect and an experimental bound on the late time magnetic field strength journal October 2018
Longitudinal conductivity of hot magnetized collisional QCD medium in the inhomogeneous electric field journal June 2019
Stability analysis for a thermodynamically consistent model of relativistic fluid dynamics journal January 2019
Collective Longitudinal Polarization in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions at Very High Energy journal January 2018
Pion Condensation by Rotation in a Magnetic Field journal January 2018
Dynamics of Vortices in Chiral Media: The Chiral Propulsion Effect journal October 2018
Kaon Photoproduction and the Λ Decay Parameter α journal October 2019
Local spin polarization in high energy heavy ion collisions journal October 2019
Coherent vortex dynamics in a strongly interacting superfluid on a silicon chip journal December 2019
Transport coefficients of hot magnetized QCD matter beyond the lowest Landau level approximation journal February 2019
Applied holography of the AdS 5 –Kerr space–time journal August 2019
Holography of low-centrality heavy ion collisions journal October 2019
Neutron Star Mergers: Probing the EoS of Hot, Dense Matter by Gravitational Waves journal January 2019
Reworking Zubarev’s Approach to Nonequilibrium Quantum Statistical Mechanics journal April 2019
Polarized Baryon Production in Heavy Ion Collisions: An Analytic Hydrodynamical Study journal May 2019
Latest Results from RHIC + Progress on Determining q ^ L in RHI Collisions Using Di-Hadron Correlations journal June 2019
Chiral magnetic effect and an experimental bound on the late time magnetic field strength text January 2018
Stability analysis for a thermodynamically consistent model of relativistic fluid dynamics text January 2019
Thermodynamic equilibrium with acceleration and the Unruh effect text January 2017
Disentangling covariant Wigner functions for chiral fermions text January 2018
Dynamics of vortices in chiral media: the chiral propulsion effect text January 2018
Applied Holography of the AdS$_5$-Kerr Spacetime text January 2018
Transport coefficients of hot magnetized QCD matter beyond the lowest Landau level approximation text January 2018
Holography of Low-Centrality Heavy Ion Collisions text January 2018
The Chiral Magnetic Effect and an experimental bound on the late time magnetic field strength text January 2018
Stability analysis for a thermodynamically consistent model of relativistic fluid dynamics text January 2018
Thermal vorticity and spin polarization in heavy-ion collisions text January 2018
The chiral vortical effect in Wigner function approach text January 2018
Polarized baryon production in heavy ion collisions: an analytic hydrodynamical study text January 2018
Relativistic Quantum Kinetic Theory for Massive Fermions and Spin Effects text January 2019
Lattice-based equation of state at finite baryon number, electric charge and strangeness chemical potentials text January 2019
Longitudinal conductivity of hot magnetized collisional QCD medium in the inhomogeneous electric field text January 2019
Axial Kinetic Theory and Spin Transport for Fermions with Arbitrary Mass text January 2019
A microscopic description for polarization in particle scatterings text January 2019
Feed-down effect on $Λ$ spin polarization text January 2019
Quantum Kinetic Theory of Spin Polarization of Massive Quarks in Perturbative QCD: Leading Log text January 2019
Local spin polarization in high energy heavy ion collisions text January 2019
Relaxation Time for Strange Quark Spin in Rotating Quark-Gluon Plasma text January 2019
Rotation induced charged pion condensation in a strong magnetic field: A Nambu--Jona-Lasino model study text January 2019
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