K* vector meson resonance dynamics in heavy-ion collisions

Andrej Ilner, Daniel Cabrera, Christina Markert, and Elena Bratkovskaya
Phys. Rev. C 95, 014903 – Published 12 January 2017

Abstract

We study the strange vector meson (K*,K¯*) dynamics in relativistic heavy-ion collisions based on the microscopic parton-hadron-string dynamics (PHSD) transport approach which incorporates partonic and hadronic degrees of freedom, a phase transition from hadronic to partonic matter—quark-gluon-plasma (QGP)—and a dynamical hadronization of quarks and antiquarks as well as final hadronic interactions. We investigate the role of in-medium effects on the K*,K¯* meson dynamics by employing Breit–Wigner spectral functions for the K* with self-energies obtained from a self-consistent coupled-channel G-matrix approach. Furthermore, we confront the PHSD calculations with experimental data for p+p, Cu+Cu, and Au+Au collisions at energies up to sNN=200 GeV. Our analysis shows that, at relativistic energies, most of the final K* (observed experimentally) are produced during the late hadronic phase, dominantly by the K+πK* channel, such that the fraction of the K* from the QGP is small and can hardly be reconstructed from the final observables. The influence of the in-medium effects on the K* dynamics at energies typical of the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is rather modest due to their dominant production at low baryon densities (but high meson densities); however, it increases with decreasing beam energy. Moreover, we find that the additional cut on the invariant-mass region of the K* further influences the shape and the height of the final spectra. This imposes severe constraints on the interpretation of the experimental results.

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  • Received 9 September 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.95.014903

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Nuclear Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Andrej Ilner1,2,*, Daniel Cabrera2,3,†, Christina Markert4,‡, and Elena Bratkovskaya1,5,§

  • 1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  • 2Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS), 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  • 3Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC), Centro Mixto Universidad de Valencia - CSIC, Institutos de Investigación de Paterna, Ap. Correos 22085, E-46071 Valencia, Spain
  • 4The University of Texas at Austin, Physics Department, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
  • 5GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH Planckstrasse 1, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany

  • *ilner@fias.uni-frankfurt.de
  • cabrera@fias.uni-frankfurt.de
  • cmarkert@physics.utexas.edu
  • §e.bratkovskaya@gsi.de

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Issue

Vol. 95, Iss. 1 — January 2017

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