Tsiledakis, Georgios Karolos (2006)
Scale Dependence of Mean Transverse Momentum Fluctuations at Top SPS Energy measured by the CERES experiment and studies of gas properties for the ALICE experiment.
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Ph.D. Thesis, Primary publication
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Transverse momentum fluctuations for CERES -
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Gas properties and FLUKA studies for ALICE -
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Appendix -
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Item Type: | Ph.D. Thesis | ||||
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Type of entry: | Primary publication | ||||
Title: | Scale Dependence of Mean Transverse Momentum Fluctuations at Top SPS Energy measured by the CERES experiment and studies of gas properties for the ALICE experiment | ||||
Language: | English | ||||
Referees: | Hoffmann, Prof. Dr. Dieter | ||||
Advisors: | Braun-Munzinger, Prof. Dr. Peter | ||||
Date: | 8 May 2006 | ||||
Place of Publication: | Darmstadt | ||||
Date of oral examination: | 8 February 2006 | ||||
Abstract: | The principal aim of the study of ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions is the search for evidence of a transient state of deconfined quarks and gluons in the early, dense and hot stage of the reaction. Non-statistical event-by-event fluctuations of mean transverse momentum,p_T, have been proposed as a possible signature for the QCD phase transition, in particular for the critical point. However, the magnitude of the measured fluctuations is not as large as anticipated. Since fluctuations were characterized so far by one single (integral) number, it was difficult to estimate the many possible contributions to them. Taking into account the high available statistics offered by the CERES experiment combined with the full azimuthal acceptance, a differential study of mean p_T fluctuations is performed, which provides the sensitivity to discriminate among various correlation sources. For the first time at SPS energy, the charge-dependent mean p_T fluctuations have been analyzed as a function of the angular pair separation, Delta(phi), and of the separation in pseudorapidity, Delta(eta). Thus, we are able to show that the overall fluctuations are dominated by the short range correlation peak at small opening angles (`near-side'), most probably originating from Bose-Einstein and Coulomb effects between pairs of particles emitted with similar velocities. Another important contribution is a broad maximum at Delta(phi) = 180 degrees (`away-side') originating from back-to-back (jet-like) correlations. Since the fluctuations related to the critical point should be present for all opening angles the best strategy is to focus on the fluctuations in the region of 30 < Delta(phi) <60 degrees, free of the influence of the two mentioned components, and where the elliptic flow cancels out. Concerning the observed away-side peak, we demonstrate that it comes from high-p_T correlations that cannot be attributed to the elliptic flow. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to studies of gas properties for the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC. Drift velocity and gain measurements have been performed for a number of gas mixtures in order to assess the effect of nitrogen which is expected to accumulate in the gas volume over long periods of running. The ALICE Transition Radiation Detector (TRD) is designed to work with a gas of 85 % Xe and 15 % CO2. Some of the nine isotopes of Xe have very high neutron capture cross-section leading to multi-gamma deexcitation cascades which produce background for the physical signals. An exhaustive study of this issue based on Monte Carlo simulations is presented, demonstrating that the level of this background is low enough not to cause deterioration in the performance of the detector. In addition, the resulting radioactivity and dose rate of the active gas system of ALICE TRD activated by slow neutrons is investigated and appear to be low and safe. |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | Ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions, Phase transitions, Event-by-Event fluctuations, Quark Gluon Plasma, Drift velocity, Gain, FLUKA | ||||
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:tuda-tuprints-6901 | ||||
Divisions: | 05 Department of Physics | ||||
Date Deposited: | 17 Oct 2008 09:22 | ||||
Last Modified: | 07 Dec 2012 11:51 | ||||
URI: | https://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/id/eprint/690 | ||||
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