What can we learn from the global spin alignment of mesons in heavy-ion collisions?
Oct 30, 2019
8 pages
Published in:
- Phys.Rev.D 101 (2020) 9, 096005,
- Phys.Rev.D 105 (2022) 9, 099903 (erratum)
- Published: May 13, 2020and
- Published: May 1, 2022
e-Print:
- 1910.13684 [nucl-th]
DOI:
View in:
Citations per year
Abstract: (APS)
We propose that a significant positive deviation from 1/3 for the spin density matrix element ρ00 of the ϕ meson may indicate the existence of a mean field of the ϕ meson generated in heavy-ion collisions. This explains why STAR preliminary data for the ϕ meson’s ρ00 are much larger than 1/3, while the data of Λ and Λ¯ polarization seem not to allow such a significant and positive deviation. The contribution is from the polarization of the strange quark and antiquark through the spin-orbit interaction in the ϕ field, a similar interaction that is responsible for nuclear shell structure at the nucleon level. We show that ρ00 for the ϕ meson is a good analyzer for fields even if they may strongly fluctuate in space-time.Note:
- ReVTex 4, 8 pages, 1 figure. A sign error in the polarization formula for the anti-quark is corrected, related discussions are changed accordingly. The results for the case with the quark polarization along all directions are added as an appendix
- Phenomenological aspects of field theory, general methods
- heavy ion: scattering
- spin: density matrix
- spin: alignment
- Phi(1020)
- polarization
- coherence
- STAR
References(85)
Figures(1)
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