Timescales in heavy ion collisions

The study of high energy collisions between heavy nuclei is a field unto itself, distinct from nuclear and particle physics. A defining aspect of heavy ion physics is the importance of a bulk, self-interacting system with a rich space-time substructure. I focus on the issue of timescales in heavy io...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2016-07
Main Author: Mike, Lisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Heavy ions
Heavy nuclei
Ionic collisions
Particle physics
Phase transitions
Substructures
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The study of high energy collisions between heavy nuclei is a field unto itself, distinct from nuclear and particle physics. A defining aspect of heavy ion physics is the importance of a bulk, self-interacting system with a rich space-time substructure. I focus on the issue of timescales in heavy ion collisions, starting with proof from low-energy collisions that femtoscopy can, indeed, measure very long timescales. I then discuss the relativistic case, where detailed measurements over three orders of magnitude in energy reveal a timescale increase that might be due to a first-order phase transition. I discuss also consistency in evolution timescales as determined from traditional longitudinal sizes and a novel analysis using shape information.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1607.06188