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Penetrating probes in relativistic heavy ion collisions

In this dissertation, the phenomenology of electromagnetic radiation and high transverse momentum jets in relativistic heavy ion collisions is investigated. These are two very important probes to study the strongly interacting matter at extreme temperatures and/or densities and to investigate the possibility of a phase transition between hadronic matter and quark-gluon plasma (QGP). First, a new channel of direct photon production from a charge-asymmetric QGP is explored in the effective theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) at high temperature. The photon production from this new channel is found to be suppressed compared to QCD annihilation process and Compton scattering at low baryon density, but might assume significance in baryon-rich matter. Second, the radiative jet energy loss in a three-dimensional ideal hydrodynamical medium is studied for Au+Au collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). A systematic analysis of the nuclear modification factor RAA is presented for pi0 production at high pT in central and non-central collisions, at mid and forward rapidity. Third, jet energy loss by elastic collisions is consistently incorporated in the same formalism and applied to the study of jet quenching at RHIC. It is found that the nuclear modification factor RAA for pi0 in relativistic heavy ion collisions is sensitive to both collisional and radiative energy loss, while the average energy loss is less affected by the inclusion of collisional energy loss. Last, the nuclear suppression of photon-tagged jets at high pT is studied by incorporating not only direct photons, but the additional sources from fragmentation and jet-plasma interaction. We find that these additional sources are very important for a complete study of the correlations between hard photons and hadrons and even dominate in some kinetic regime.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.115878
Date January 2008
CreatorsQin, GuangYou.
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageDoctor of Philosophy (Department of Physics.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 002840652, proquestno: AAINR66657, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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