STAR Results from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan-I

The Beam Energy Scan (BES) program is being pursued at RHIC to study the QCD phase diagram, and search for the possible QCD phase boundary and possible QCD critical point. The data for Phase-I of the BES program have been collected for Au+Au collisions at center-of-mass energies ($\sqrt{s_{NN}}$) of 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, and 39 GeV. These collision energies allowed the STAR experiment to cover a wide range of baryon chemical potential $\mu_{B}$ (100--400 MeV) in the QCD phase diagram. We report on several interesting results from the BES Phase-I covering the high net-baryon density region. These results shed light on particle production mechanism and freeze-out conditions, first-order phase transition and "turn-off" of QGP signatures, and existence of a critical point in the phase diagram. Finally, we give an outlook for the future BES Phase-II program and a possible fixed target program at STAR.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, Plenary talk to appear as proceedings of QM2012 conference (August 13-18, 2012) at Washington DC, US

Review of Recent Results from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan

We review recent results from the RHIC beam energy scan (BES) program, aimed to study the Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) phase diagram. The main goals are to search for the possible phase boundary, softening of equation of state or first order phase transition, and possible critical point. Phase-I of the BES program has recently concluded with data collection for Au+Au collisions at center-of-mass energies ($\sqrt{s_{NN}}$) of 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, and 39 GeV. Several interesting results are observed for these lower energies where the net-baryon density is high at the mid-rapidity. These results indicate that the matter formed at lower energies (7.7 and 11.5 GeV) is hadron dominated and might not have undergone a phase transition. In addition, the centrality dependence of freeze-out parameters is observed for the first time at lower energies, slope of directed flow for (net)-protons measured versus rapidity shows an interesting behavior at lower energies, and higher moments of net-proton show deviation from Skellam expectations at lower energies. An outlook for the future BES Phase-II program is presented and efforts for the detailed study of QCD phase diagram are discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures. Review article, accepted for publication in Modern Physics Letters

Thermal Model Description of p--Pb Collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 5.02 TeV

The ALICE data on light flavor hadron production obtained in $p-Pb$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV are studied in the thermal model using the canonical approach with exact strangeness conservation. The chemical freeze-out temperature is independent of centrality except for the lowest multiplicity bin, with values close to 160 MeV but consistent with those obtained in $Pb-Pb$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV. The value of the strangeness non-equilibrium factor $\gamma_s$ is slowly increasing with multiplicity from 0.9 to 0.96, i.e. it is always very close to full chemical equilibrium.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figure

Energy dependence of elliptic flow from heavy-ion collision models

We have compared the experimental data on charged particle elliptic flow parameter (v2) in Au+Au collisions at midrapidity for \surd sNN = 9.2, 19.6, 62.4 and 200 GeV with results from various models in heavy-ion collisions like UrQMD, AMPT, and HIJING. We observe that the average from the transport model UrQMD agrees well with the measurements at \surd sNN = 9.2 GeV but increasingly falls short of the experimental values as the beam energy increases. The difference in being of the order of 60% at \surd sNN = 200 GeV. The results from HIJING is consistent with zero, while those from AMPT with default settings, a model based on HIJING with additional initial and final state rescattering effects included, gives a value of about 4% for all the beam energies studied. This is in contrast to increase in with beam energy for the experimental data. A different version of the AMPT model, which includes partonic effects and quark coalescence as a mechanism of hadronization, gives higher values of among the models studied and is in agreement with the measured values at \surd sNN = 200 GeV. These studies show that the experimental has substantial contribution from partonic interactions at \surd sNN = 200 GeV whose magnitude reduces with decrease in beam energy. We also compare the available data on the transverse momentum and pseudorapidity dependence of v2 to those from the above models.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, accepted in Physical Review

Longitudinal scaling of observables in heavy-ion collision models

Longitudinal scaling of pseudorapidity distribution of charged particles ($dN_{\mathrm {ch}}/d\eta$) is observed when presented as a function of pseudorapidity ($\eta$) shifted by the beam rapidity ($\eta$ - $y_{\mathrm {beam}}$) for a wide range of collision systems ($e^{+}+e^{-}$, p+p, $d$+A and A+A) and beam energies. Such a scaling is also observed for the elliptic flow ($v_{2}$) of charged hadrons in A+A collisions. This is a striking observation, as $v_{2}$ is expected to be sensitive to the initial conditions, the expansion dynamics and the degrees of freedom of the system, all of which potentially varies with collision system and colliding energies. We present a study of the longitudinal scalings of $dN_{\mathrm {ch}}/d\eta$, average transverse momentum () and $v_{2}$ using transport models UrQMD and AMPT for Au+Au collisions at center of mass energies ($\sqrt{s_{\mathrm {NN}}}$) of 19.6, 62.4, 200 GeV and Pb+Pb collisions at 2760 GeV. Only the AMPT models which includes partonic effects and quark coalescence as a mechanism of hadronization, shows longitudinal scaling for $dN_{\mathrm {ch}}/d\eta$, $< p_{\mathrm T}>$ and $v_{2}$. Whereas the UrQMD and AMPT default versions show longitudinal scaling only for $dN_{\mathrm {ch}}/d\eta$ and . We also discuss the possibility of longitudinal scaling of $v_{2}$ within two extreme scenarios of models with hydrodynamic and collisionless limits. We find the longitudinal scaling of bulk observables to be an important test for the underlying physics mechanism in models of particle production.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Identified Hadron Production from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan

A current focus at RHIC is the Beam Energy Scan to study the QCD phase diagram -- temperature ($T$) vs. baryon chemical potential ($\mu_{B}$). The STAR experiment has collected data for Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 7.7 GeV, 11.5 GeV, and 39 GeV in the year 2010. We present midrapidity results on rapidity density, average transverse mass, and particle ratios for identified hadrons from the STAR experiment. Collision dynamics are studied in the framework of chemical and kinetic freeze-out conditions.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear as proceedings of QM2011 conference at Annecy, Franc

Energy dependence of pbar/p ratio in p+p collisions

We have compiled the experimentally measured pbar/p ratio at midrapidity in p+p collisions from \sqrt{s} = 23 to 7000 GeV and compared it to various mechanisms of baryon production as implemented in PYTHIA, PHOJET and HIJING/B-Bbar models. For the models studied with default settings, PHOJET has the best agreement with the measurements, PYTHIA gives a higher value for \sqrt{s} < 200 GeV and the ratios from HIJING/B-Bbar are consistently lower for all the \sqrt{s} studied. Comparison of the data to different mechanisms of baryon production as implemented in PYTHIA shows that through a suitable tuning of the suppression of diquark-antidiquark pair production in the color field relative to quark-antiquark production and allowing the diquarks to split according to the popcorn scheme gives a fairly reasonable description of the measured pbar/p ratio for \sqrt{s} < 200 GeV. Comparison of the beam energy dependence of the pbar/p ratio in p+p and nucleus-nucleus (A+A) collisions at midrapidity shows that the baryon production is significantly more for A+A collisions relative to p+p collisions for \sqrt{s} < 200 GeV. We also carry out a phenomenological fit to the y_beam dependence of the pbar/p ratio.Comment: 5 pages and 5 figures. Accepted in Physical Review

Selected Experimental Results from Heavy Ion Collisions at LHC

We review a subset of experimental results from the heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) facility at CERN. Excellent consistency is observed across all the experiments at the LHC (at center of mass energy of 2.76 TeV) for the measurements such as charged particle multiplicity density, azimuthal anisotropy coefficients and nuclear modification factor of charged hadrons. Comparison to similar measurements from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at lower energy (center of mass energy of 200 GeV) suggests that system formed at LHC has a higher energy density, larger system size, and lives for a longer time. These measurements are compared to model calculations to obtain physical insights on the properties of matter created at the RHIC and LHC.Comment: 19 pages and 26 figures. Accepted for publication in the special issue of Advances in High Energy Physics dedicated to Physics of Quark Gluon Plasma: An Update and Status Repor