Probing hot and dense nuclear matter with K*, K¯* vector mesons

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of probing the hot and dense nuclear matter -created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions (HIC) -with strange vector mesons (K * ,K * ). Our analysis is based on the non-equilibrium Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach which incorporates partonic and hadronic degrees-of-freedom and describes the full dynamics of HIC on a microscopic level -starting from the primary nucleon-nucleon collisions to the formation of the strongly interacting Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP), followed by dynamical hadronization of (anti-)quarks as well as final hadronic elastic and inelastic interactions. This allows to study the K * andK * meson formation from the QGP as well as the in-medium effects related to the modification of their spectral properties during the propagation through the dense and hot hadronic environment in the expansion phase. We employ relativistic Breit-Wigner spectral functions for the K *

Production of the ρ(770)0 meson in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at sAcharya1, Acosta2, Adamová3 et al. 2019Phys. Rev. C302210View full textAdd to dashboardCite

“…An example of such studies performed for K * (892) 0 can be found in Ref. [34]. Similar studies are not yet available for ρ(770) 0 .…”

A hadronic transport analysis on the Δ mass in Au + Au reactions at 1.23 AGeV

“…Hence, we expect the mass shift to first approximation to behave qualitatively like a relativistic Breit-Wigner distribution (BW) multiplied by the thermal weight of each resonance (often called phase-space factor [PS]) (Fachini et al 2007;Ilner et al 2019). In the case of the Δ(1232), which is a very short-lived resonance, this effect is even stronger because the Δ(1232) decays quickly and is regenerated many times before its final detectable decay occurs.…”

“…This implies two features, namely, that (a) the local temperature of the system decides where the Δ(1232) is going to be populated in its invariant mass distribution and (b) the mass distribution can possibly be used to determine the temperature of the system at the kinetic freeze‐out surface. Hence, we expect the mass shift to first approximation to behave qualitatively like a relativistic Breit‐Wigner distribution (BW) multiplied by the thermal weight of each resonance (often called phase‐space factor [PS]) (Fachini et al ; Ilner et al ). That is, with and …”

Absorption and production cross sections of K and K*

“…Very recently, K and K Ã formation in relativistic heavy-ion collisions has been investigated in the context of the Parton-Hadron-String dynamics (PHSD) transport approach [38,39], which considers the in-medium effects in the K andK Ã states through the modification of their spectral properties during the propagation through the medium. The authors conclude that final state interactions (in the hadron gas) contribute to reduce the ratio K Ã /K, corroborating the findings of Ref.…”