Introduction to High-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions

The following sections are included:

• Preface

• Contents

What are the interesting physical phenomena which can be explored by high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions? To answer this question, it is useful to note that one of the most important characteristics of high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions is the large amount of energy involved. When a large fraction of this energy is deposited in a small region of space in a short duration of time, the energy density can be very high [1]. As a concrete example, we may consider the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC), which is being constructed at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The Collider is designed to accelerate nuclei to an energy of about 100 GeV per nucleon. In the collision of a gold nucleus with another gold nucleus in such a collider, the energy carried by each nucleus is about 100 × 197 GeV, or 19.7 TeV, and the center-of-mass energy is about 2 × 19.7 TeV, or 39.4 TeV. The magnitude of energy involved in nucleus-nucleus collisions is very large indeed. To attain even greater center-of-mass energies, there is a recent proposal to accelerate heavy-ions in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) being planned at CERN to a center-of-mass energy of about 3 TeV per nucleon, which will lead to a center-of-mass energy of about 1262 TeV for the collision of Pb on Pb [2,3]…

The following sections are included:

• Notation and Conventions

• Light-Cone Variables

• Rapidity Variable

• Pseudorapidity Variable

The following sections are included:

• Particle Production in Nucleon-Nucleon Collisions

• Baryon Energy Loss in an Inelastic Collision

• References for Chapter 3

The following sections are included:

• The Infinite-Momentum Frame

• Relativistic Hard-Scattering Model

• Counting Rules

• Application of the Hard-Scattering Model

• Direct Fragmentation Process

• References for Chapter 4

The following sections are included:

• Schwinger Particle Production Mechanism

• Particle Production Rate

• References for Chapter 5

The following sections are included:

• Qualitative Description of QED₂

• Relation between j^μ and A^μ in QED₂

• Inside-Outside Cascade

• Rapidity Distribution from QED₂

• References for Chapter 6

The following sections are included:

• The String Model of Hadrons

• The Yo-Yo Model of Stable Particles

• A Yo-Yo State in Motion

• The Symmetric Lund Model

• Lund Model for Nuclear Collisions

• References for Chapter 7

The following sections are included:

• Dual Resonance Model

• Pomeron Exchange

• Particle Production Processes

• References for Chapter 8

The following sections are included:

• Quarks and Gluons

• Bag Model of a Hadron

• Quark-Gluon Plasma
  • Quark-Gluon Plasma at High Temperatures
  • Quark-Gluon Plasma with a High Baryon Density

• References for Chapter 9

The following sections are included:

• Path Integral Method for a Single-Particle System

• Partition Function for a Single-Particle System

• Path Integral Method for a Scalar Field

• Partition Function for a Scalar Field

• Basic Quantities in Lattice Gauge Theory

• The Lagrangian and the Euclidean Action for QCD

• Euclidean Space and Minkowski Space Compared and Contrasted

• Fermion Part of the Euclidean Action

• References for Chapter 10

The following sections are included:

• The Wilson Loop

• The Order of a Phase Transition

• Mean-Field Approximation

• Numerical Results from Lattice Gauge Theory

• Lattice Gauge Calculations with Fermions

• References for Chapter 11

The following sections are included:

• Multiple Collisions and Nuclear Stopping

• Glauber Model of Nucleus-Nucleus Collision

• Some Analytic Examples

• References for Chapter 12

The following sections are included:

• Nuclear Stopping Power and the Baryon Content

• Bjorken's Estimate of the Initial Energy Density in High-Energy Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions

• Hydrodynamics of the Quark-Gluon Plasma

• References for Chapter 13

The following sections are included:

• Dilepton Production in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

• Dilepton Production from Other Processes
  • Drell-Yan Process
  • Drell-Yan Process in Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions
  • Dilepton Production from Hadrons and Resonances
  • Dileptons from the Decay of Charm Particles

• Spectrum of Dileptons

• References for Chapter 14

The following sections are included:

• Debye Screening in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

• J/ψ Suppression in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

• Experimental Information on J/ψ Production and J/ψ Suppression

• J/ψ Suppression in Hadron Environment

• Transverse Momentum Distribution of J/ψ Particles

• References for Chapter 15

The following sections are included:

• Photon Production in the Quark-Gluon Plasma

• Photon Production by Quark-Antiquark Annihilation

• Photon Production by qq̄ Annihilation in the Plasma

• Photon Production by the Compton Process

• Photon Production in the Plasma due to the Compton Process

• Photon Production by Hadrons

• Photon Production by Parton Collisions

• Experimental Information on Photon Production

• References for Chapter 16

The following sections are included:

• The Hanbury-Brown-Twiss Effect of Intensity Interferometry

• Pion Momentum Correlations from Chaotic Sources

• Coherent and Partially Coherent Sources

• Experimental Information on Pion Interferometry

• References for Chapter 17

The following sections are included:

• Strangeness Content in Matter at Thermal and Chemical Equilibrium

• Rate of Approach to Chemical Equilibrium in a Quark-Gluon Plasma

• Experimental Information on Strangeness Production

• References for Chapter 18

The physics of high-energy heavy-ion collisions is an emerging field of research. It encompasses the study of strongly interacting systems in thermal and chemical equilibrium, and the dynamics of these systems in energetic collisions or in nonequilibrium evolution. This book has been written to provide the background material for the major topics in this field, at an elementary level. These topics are summarized in this chapter. The summary also serves as an introduction to the contents of the book…

The following sections are included:

• Index