Related papers: Thermalization at RHIC
Hydrodynamical modeling of heavy ion collisions at RHIC suggests that the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) "thermalizes" in a remarkably short time scale, about 0.6 fm/c. We argue that this should be viewed as indicating fast isotropization, but…
In gold-gold collisions of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) a perfect fluid of quarks, sometimes called the strongly interacting quark gluon plasma (sQGP) is created for an extremely short time. The time evolution of this fluid…
In a Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), the fundamental building blocks of matter, quarks and gluons, are under extreme conditions of temperature and density. A QGP could exist in the early stages of the Universe, and in various objects and events…
The bulk of the hot and dense matter created at RHIC behaves like an almost ideal fluid. I present the evidence for this and also discuss what we can learn about the transport properties of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) from the gradual…
We review the main results obtained by the BRAHMS collaboration on the properties of hot and dense hadronic and partonic matter produced in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC. A particular focus of this paper is to discuss to…
We consider time-scales of first-order deconfinement or chiral-symmetry restoring phase transition in high energy heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies. Recently it was shown that the system must supercool below $T_c$ before the…
Thermalization and collective flow of charm (c) and bottom (b) quarks in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions are evaluated based on elastic parton rescattering in an expanding quark-gluon plasma (QGP). We show that resonant interactions…
In high-energy heavy-ion collisions, a nearly perfect fluid is formed, known as the strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma (QGP). After a short thermalization period, the evolution of this medium can be described by the equations of…
I present a theory-guided review of RHIC data, arguing that they provide strong evidence for formation of a thermalized quark-gluon plasma at RHIC. Strong radial flow reflects high thermal pressure in the reaction zone. Large elliptic flow…
The relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC) was constructed to achieve an asymptotic state of nuclear matter in heavy ion collisions, a near-ideal gas of deconfined quarks and gluons denoted quark-gluon plasma or QGP. RHIC collisions are…
We discuss the bulk properties of QGP produced at RHIC obtained at time of hadronization. We argue that hadronization of quark--gluon plasma occurs at a critical pressure of 82 MeV/fm3, obtained for SPS energy range.
This brief review summarizes the main experimental discoveries made at RHIC and then discusses their implications. The robust collective flow phenomena are well described by ideal hydrodynamics, with the Equation of State (EoS) predicted by…
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) was built to re-create and study in the laboratory the extremely hot and dense matter that filled our entire universe during its first few microseconds. Its operation since June 2000 has been…
A 1+3 dimensional solution of relativistic hydrodynamics is analyzed in this paper. Momentum distribution and other observables are calculated from the solution and compared to hadronic measurements from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider…
We argue that quite unusual properties of Quark-Gluon Plasma in the RHIC temperature domain $T=(1-2)T_c$ are consequences of the approximate equilibrium between electric and magnetic sectors reached above the deconfinement temperature.…
We assess transport properties of heavy quarks in the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) that show a strong non-perturbative behavior. A T-matrix approach based on a potential taken from lattice QCD hints at the presence of heavy-quark (HQ) resonant…
We believe that one can have serious reservations as to whether heavy ion collisions (e.g. 100 GeV/n Au + 100 GeV/n Au) can lead to Thermal and Chemical equilibrium over large regions (particularly if it is assumed this happens whenever QGP…
This article reviews several important results from RHIC experiments and discusses their implications. They were obtained in a unique environment for studying QCD matter at temperatures and densities that exceed the limits wherein hadrons…
The time-scales of rehadronization are considered for a baryon-free QGP at RHIC and LHC energies. The non-equilibrium nucleation scenario leads to mechanical instability of the supercooled QGP phase which then may be suddenly converted in a…
It is shown that recent RHIC data on hadron spectra and elliptic flow can be excellently reproduced within a hydrodynamic description of the collision dynamics, and that this provides strong evidence for rapid thermalization while the…