This report reviews the study of open heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in high-energy hadronic collisions, as tools to investigate fundamental aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics, from the proton and nucleus structure at high energy to deconfinement and the properties of the Quark–Gluon Plasma. Emphasis is given to the lessons learnt from LHC Run 1 results, which are reviewed in a global picture with the results from SPS and RHIC at lower energies, as well as to the questions to be addressed in the future. The report covers heavy flavour and quarkonium production in proton–proton, proton–nucleus and nucleus–nucleus collisions. This includes discussion of the effects of hot and cold strongly interacting matter, quarkonium photoproduction in nucleus–nucleus collisions and perspectives on the study of heavy flavour and quarkonium with upgrades of existing experiments and new experiments. The report results from the activity of the SaporeGravis network of the I3 Hadron Physics programme of the European Union 7
 $$\mathrm{th}$$
 Framework Programme.

/pdf/heavy-flavour-and-quarkonium-production-in-the-lhc-era-from-3mjeq7sf7i.pdf

Heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in the LHC era: from proton–proton to heavy-ion collisions

It is sometimes speculated that the sign problem that afflicts many quantum field theories might be reduced or even eliminated by choosing an alternative domain of integration within a complexified extension of the path integral (in the spirit of the stationary phase integration method). In this paper we start to explore this possibility somewhat systematically. A first inspection reveals the presence of many difficulties but---quite surprisingly---most of them have an interesting solution. In particular, it is possible to regularize the lattice theory on a Lefschetz thimble, where the imaginary part of the action is constant and disappears from all observables. This regularization can be justified in terms of symmetries and perturbation theory. Moreover, it is possible to design a Monte Carlo algorithm that samples the configurations in the thimble. This is done by simulating, effectively, a five-dimensional system. We describe the algorithm in detail and analyze its expected cost and stability. Unfortunately, the measure term also produces a phase which is not constant and it is currently very expensive to compute. This residual sign problem is expected to be much milder, as the dominant part of the integral is not affected, but we have still no convincing evidence of this. However, the main goal of this paper is to introduce a new approach to the sign problem, that seems to offer much room for improvements. An appealing feature of this approach is its generality. It is illustrated first in the simple case of a scalar field theory with chemical potential, and then extended to the more challenging case of QCD at finite baryonic density.

New approach to the sign problem in quantum field theories: High density QCD on a Lefschetz thimble

Substantial experimental and theoretical efforts worldwide are devoted to explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. At LHC and top RHIC energies, QCD matter is studied at very high temperatures and nearly vanishing net-baryon densities. There is evidence that a Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) was created at experiments at RHIC and LHC. The transition from the QGP back to the hadron gas is found to be a smooth cross over. For larger net-baryon densities and lower temperatures, it is expected that the QCD phase diagram exhibits a rich structure, such as a first-order phase transition between hadronic and partonic matter which terminates in a critical point, or exotic phases like quarkyonic matter. The discovery of these landmarks would be a breakthrough in our understanding of the strong interaction and is therefore in the focus of various high-energy heavy-ion research programs. The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR will play a unique role in the exploration of the QCD phase diagram in the region of high net-baryon densities, because it is designed to run at unprecedented interaction rates. High-rate operation is the key prerequisite for high-precision measurements of multi-differential observables and of rare diagnostic probes which are sensitive to the dense phase of the nuclear fireball. The goal of the CBM experiment at SIS100 ( $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 2.7--4.9 GeV) is to discover fundamental properties of QCD matter: the phase structure at large baryon-chemical potentials ( $\mu_B > 500$ MeV), effects of chiral symmetry, and the equation of state at high density as it is expected to occur in the core of neutron stars. In this article, we review the motivation for and the physics programme of CBM, including activities before the start of data taking in 2024, in the context of the worldwide efforts to explore high-density QCD matter.

/pdf/challenges-in-qcd-matter-physics-the-scientific-programme-of-5skvfyocqi.pdf

Challenges in QCD matter physics --The scientific programme of the Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at FAIR

This report reviews the study of open heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in high-energy hadronic collisions, as tools to investigate fundamental aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics, from the proton and nucleus structure at high energy to deconfinement and the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma. Emphasis is given to the lessons learnt from LHC Run 1 results, which are reviewed in a global picture with the results from SPS and RHIC at lower energies, as well as to the questions to be addressed in the future. The report covers heavy flavour and quarkonium production in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. This includes discussion of the effects of hot and cold strongly interacting matter, quarkonium photo-production in nucleus-nucleus collisions and perspectives on the study of heavy flavour and quarkonium with upgrades of existing experiments and new experiments. The report results from the activity of the SaporeGravis network of the I3 Hadron Physics programme of the European Union 7th Framework Programme.

/pdf/heavy-flavour-and-quarkonium-production-in-the-lhc-era-from-14reyjtbnx.pdf

Heavy-flavour and quarkonium production in the LHC era: from proton-proton to heavy-ion collisions

We discuss the phase structure of QCD for Nf=2 and Nf=2+1 dynamical quark flavors at finite temperature and baryon chemical potential. It emerges dynamically from the underlying fundamental interactions between quarks and gluons in our work. To this end, starting from the perturbative high-energy regime, we systematically integrate out quantum fluctuations toward low energies by using the functional renormalization group. By dynamically hadronizing the dominant interaction channels responsible for the formation of light mesons and quark condensates, we are able to extract the phase diagram for μB/T≲6. We find a critical endpoint at (TCEP,μBCEP)=(107,635)  MeV. The curvature of the phase boundary at small chemical potential is κ=0.0142(2), computed from the renormalized light chiral condensate Δl,R. Furthermore, we find indications for an inhomogeneous regime in the vicinity and above the chiral transition for μB≳417  MeV. Where applicable, our results are in very good agreement with the most recent lattice results. We also compare to results from other functional methods and phenomenological freeze-out data. This indicates that a consistent picture of the phase structure at finite baryon chemical potential is beginning to emerge. The systematic uncertainty of our results grows large in the density regime around the critical endpoint and we discuss necessary improvements of our current approximation toward a quantitatively precise determination of QCD phase diagram.

QCD phase structure at finite temperature and density

Part 0: General Introduction.- Part I: Bulk Properties of Strongly Interacting Matter.- Part II: In-Medium Excitations.- Part III Collision Dynamics.- Part IV: Observables and Predictions.- Part V The CBM Experiment.- Glossary.- References.

Peter Senger

Papers

The CBM Physics Book