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Abstract: The dynamics of partons, hadrons and strings in relativistic nucleus–nucleus collisions is analyzed within the novel Parton–Hadron–String Dynamics (PHSD) transport approach, which is based on a Dynamical QuasiParticle Model (DQPM) for partons matched to reproduce recent lattice-QCD results – including the partonic equation of state – in thermodynamic equilibrium. Scalar- and vector-interaction densities are extracted from the DQPM as well as effective scalar- and vector-mean fields for the partons. The transition from partonic to hadronic degrees of freedom is described by covariant transition rates for the fusion of quark–antiquark pairs or three quarks (antiquarks), respectively, obeying flavor current-conservation, color neutrality as well as energy–momentum conservation. Since the dynamical quarks and antiquarks become very massive close to the phase transition, the formed resonant ‘pre-hadronic’ color-dipole states ( or qqq) are of high invariant mass, too, and sequentially decay to the groundstate meson and baryon octets increasing the total entropy. The PHSD approach is applied to nucleus–nucleus collisions from 20 to in order to explore the space–time regions of ‘partonic matter’. We find that even central collisions at the top-SPS energy of show a large fraction of non-partonic, i.e. hadronic or string-like matter, which can be viewed as a hadronic corona. This finding implies that neither hadronic nor only partonic ‘models’ can be employed to extract physical conclusions in comparing model results with data. On the other hand – studying in detail Pb+Pb reactions from 40 to – we observe that the partonic phase has a very low impact on rapidity distributions of hadrons but a sizeable influence on the transverse mass distribution of final kaons due to the repulsive partonic mean fields. Furthermore, we find a significant effect on the production of multi-strange antibaryons due to a slightly enhanced pair production in the partonic phase from massive time-like gluon decay and a larger formation of antibaryons in the hadronization process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The hadronization of an expanding partonic fireball is studied within the Parton-Hadron-String Dynamics (PHSD) approach which is based on a dynamical quasiparticle model (DQPM) matched to reproduce lattice QCD results in thermodynamic equilibrium. Apart from strong parton interactions the expansion and development of collective flow is found to be driven by strong gradients in the parton mean-fields. An analysis of the elliptic flow demonstrates a linear correlation with the spatial eccentricity as in the case of ideal hydrodynamics. The hadronization occurs by quark–antiquark fusion or 3 quark/3 antiquark recombination which is described by covariant transition rates. Since the dynamical quarks become very massive, the formed resonant ‘pre-hadronic’ color-dipole states ( or ) are of high invariant mass, too, and sequentially decay to the groundstate meson and baryon octets increasing the total entropy. This solves the entropy problem in hadronization in a natural way. Hadronic particle ratios turn out to be in line with those from a grand-canonical partition function at temperature MeV. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Dynamical quasiparticle properties are determined from lattice QCD along the line of the Peshier model for the running strong coupling constant in case of three light flavors. By separating time-like and space-like quantities in the number density and energy density the effective degrees of freedom in the gluon and quark sector may be specified from the time-like densities. The space-like parts of the energy densities are identified with interaction energy (or potential energy) densities. By using the time-like parton densities (or scalar densities) as independent degrees of freedom—instead of the temperature T and chemical potential as Lagrange parameters—variations of the potential energy densities with respect to the time-like gluon and/or fermion densities lead to effective mean-fields for time-like gluons and quarks as well as to effective gluon–gluon, quark–gluon and quark–quark (quark–antiquark) interactions. The latter dynamical quantities are found to be approximately independent on the quark chemical potential and thus well suited for an implementation in off-shell parton transport approaches. Results from the dynamical quasiparticle model (DQPM) in case of two dynamical light quark flavors are compared to lattice QCD calculations for the net quark density as well as for the ‘back-to-back’ differential dilepton production rate by annihilation. The DQPM is found to pass the independent tests. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Within a hadron-string dynamical transport approach (HSD) we investigate the attenuation of high transverse momentum () hadrons as well as the suppression of ‘near-side’ and ‘far-side’ jets in Au+Au collisions at invariant energies and in comparison to the data available from the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC). From our transport studies we find that a significant part of the high hadron attenuation seen experimentally can be attributed to inelastic interactions of ‘leading’ pre-hadrons with the dense hadronic environment. In addition, we also show results of ‘near-side’ and ‘far-side’ angular correlations of high particles from Au+Au collisions at and within this (pre-)hadronic attenuation scenario. It turns out that the ‘near-side’ correlations are unaltered—in accordance with experiment—whereas the ‘far-side’ correlations are suppressed by up to ∼ 60% in central collisions. Since a much larger suppression is observed experimentally for these reactions in central reactions we conclude that there should be strong additional (and earlier) partonic interactions in the dense and possibly colored medium created in Au+Au collisions at RHIC. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We investigate hadron production and attenuation of hadrons with strange and charm quarks (or antiquarks) as well as high transverse momentum hadrons in relativistic nucleus–nucleus collisions from 2 A GeV to 21.3 A TeV within two independent transport approaches (UrQMD and HSD). Both transport models are based on quark, diquark, string and hadronic degrees of freedom, but do not include any explicit phase transition to a quark–gluon plasma. From our dynamical calculations we find that both models do not describe the maximum in the K+/π+ ratio at 20–30 A GeV in central Au+Au collisions found experimentally, though the excitation functions of strange mesons are reproduced well in HSD and UrQMD. Furthermore, the transport calculations show that the charmonium recreation by D+&Dmacr;→J/Ψ+meson reactions is comparable to the dissociation by ‘comoving’ mesons at RHIC energies contrary to SPS energies. This leads to the final result that the total J/Ψ suppression as a function of centrality at RHIC should be less than the suppression seen at SPS energies where the ‘comover’ dissociation is substantial and the backward channels play no role. Furthermore, our transport calculations—in comparison to experimental data on transverse momentum spectra from pp, d+Au and Au+Au reactions—show that pre-hadronic effects are responsible for both the hardening of the hadron spectra for low transverse momenta (Cronin effect) as well as the suppression of high pT hadrons. The mutual interactions of formed hadrons are found to be negligible in central Au+Au collisions at √ of s=200 GeV for pT≥6 GeV/c and the sizeable suppression seen experimentally is attributed to a large extent to the interactions of ‘leading’ pre-hadrons with the dense environment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Charmonium production and suppression in In+In and Pb+Pb reactions at SPS energies is investigated with the HSD transport approach within the ‘hadronic comover model’ as well as the ‘QGP threshold scenario’. The results of the transport calculations for suppression and the to ratio are compared with the recent data of the NA50 and NA60 Collaborations. We find that the comover absorption model—with a single parameter for the matrix element squared for charmonium-meson dissociation—performs best with respect to all data sets. The ‘threshold scenario’—within different assumptions for the melting energy densities—yields a reasonable suppression for but fails in reproducing the to ratio for Pb+Pb at . Predictions for Au+Au reactions are presented for a bombarding energy of in the different scenarios which will allow for a clear distinction between the models from the experimental side at the future FAIR facility. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]