Search

At low to moderate collision energies where the parton formation time τF is not small compared to the nuclear crossing time, the finite nuclear thickness significantly affects the energy density ϵ(t) and net conserved-charge densities such as the net-baryon density nB(t) produced in heavy ion collisions. As a result, at low to moderate energies the trajectory in the QCD phase diagram is also affected by the finite nuclear thickness. Here, we first discuss our semi-analytical model and its results on ϵ(f), nR(t), nQ(t), and ns(t) in central Au+Au collisions. We then compare the T(t), μB(t), μQ(t), and μS(t) extracted with the ideal gas equation of state (EoS) with quantum statistics to those extracted with a lattice QCD-based EoS. We also compare the T-μB trajectories with the RHIC chemical freezeout data. Finally, we discuss the effect of transverse flow on the trajectories.

Although strange quarks are produced in ss¯ss¯ pairs, the ratio of Ω− to Ω¯+Ω¯+ is greater than one in heavy-ion collisions at lower RHIC energies. Thus the produced Ω hyperons must carry net baryon quantum numbers from the colliding nuclei. We present results of K-Ω correlations from AMPT model simulations of Au+Au collisions at √SNN = 14.6 GeVsNN=14.6 GeV, to probe dynamics for baryon number transport to mid-rapidities at this beam energy. We use both the default and string-melting versions to illustrate how hadronization schemes of quark coalescence and string fragmentations could leave imprints on such correlations. Implications on the measurements of these correlations with the STAR experiment at RHIC will also be discussed.

The current version of a multi-phase transport (AMPT) model with string melting can reasonably describe the dN/dy yields, pT spectra and anisotropic flows of pions and kaons at low pT in heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies, although it failed to reproduce the dN/dy and pT spectra of baryons. In this work, we improve the quark coalescence mechanism in AMPT by removing the forced separate number conservations of mesons, baryons and antibaryons in each event. We find that the improved AMPT model can better describe the yields at midrapidity, the pT spectra and elliptic flow of low-pT baryons in comparison with the experimental data. Antiparticle-to-particle ratios of strange baryons are also significantly improved.

The vorticity-driven effects are systematically studied in various aspects. With AMPT the distributions of vorticity has been investigated in heavy ion collisions with different collision parameters. Taking the rotational polarization effect into account a generic condensate suppression mechanism is discussed and quantitatively studied with NJL model. And in chiral restored phase the chiral vortical effects would generate a new collective mode, i.e. the chiral vortical wave. Using the rotating quark-gluon plasma in heavy ion collisions as a concrete example, we show the formation of induced flavor quadrupole in QGP and estimate the elliptic flow splitting effect for Λ baryons.

In earlier studies we have proposed that most parton v2 comes from the anisotropic escape of partons, not from the hydrodynamic flow, even for semi-central Au+Au collisions at SNN = 200 GeV. Here we study the flavor dependence of this escape mechanism with a multi-phase transport model. In contrast to naive expectations, we find that the charm v2 is much more sensitive to the hydrodynamic flow than the lighter quark v2, and the fraction of v2 from the escape mechanism decreases strongly with the quark mass for large collision systems. We also find that the light quark collective flow is essential for the charm quark v2. Our finding thus suggests that heavy quark flows are better probes of the quark-gluon-plasma properties than light quark flows.