Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies

About: Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies is a facility organization based out in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Baryon & Quark–gluon plasma. The organization has 798 authors who have published 2733 publications receiving 82799 citations. The organization is also known as: FIAS.

Extension of TOPAS for the simulation of proton radiation effects considering molecular and cellular endpoints.

Abstract: The aim of this work is to extend a widely used proton Monte Carlo tool, TOPAS, towards the modeling of relative biological effect (RBE) distributions in experimental arrangements as well as patients. TOPAS provides a software core which users configure by writing parameter files to, for instance, define application specific geometries and scoring conditions. Expert users may further extend TOPAS scoring capabilities by plugging in their own additional C++ code. This structure was utilized for the implementation of eight biophysical models suited to calculate proton RBE. As far as physics parameters are concerned, four of these models are based on the proton linear energy transfer, while the others are based on DNA double strand break induction and the frequency-mean specific energy, lineal energy, or delta electron generated track structure. The biological input parameters for all models are typically inferred from fits of the models to radiobiological experiments. The model structures have been implemented in a coherent way within the TOPAS architecture. Their performance was validated against measured experimental data on proton RBE in a spread-out Bragg peak using V79 Chinese Hamster cells. This work is an important step in bringing biologically optimized treatment planning for proton therapy closer to the clinical practice as it will allow researchers to refine and compare pre-defined as well as user-defined models.

Relativistic viscous hydrodynamics for heavy-ion collisions with ECHO-QGP

Abstract: We present ECHO-QGP, a numerical code for $(3+1)$-dimensional relativistic viscous hydrodynamics designed for the modeling of the space-time evolution of the matter created in high energy nuclear collisions. The code has been built on top of the \emph{Eulerian Conservative High-Order} astrophysical code for general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamics [\emph{Del Zanna et al., Astron. Astrophys. 473, 11, 2007}] and here it has been upgraded to handle the physics of the Quark-Gluon Plasma. ECHO-QGP features second-order treatment of causal relativistic viscosity effects in both Minkowskian or Bjorken coordinates; partial or complete chemical equilibrium of hadronic species before kinetic freeze-out; initial conditions based on the optical Glauber model, including a Monte-Carlo routine for event-by-event fluctuating initial conditions; a freeze-out procedure based on the Cooper-Frye prescription. The code is extensively validated against several test problems and results always appear accurate, as guaranteed by the combination of the conservative (shock-capturing) approach and the high-order methods employed. ECHO-QGP can be extended to include evolution of the electromagnetic fields coupled to the plasma.

On the stability and maximum mass of differentially rotating relativistic stars

Abstract: The stability properties of rotating relativistic stars against prompt gravitational collapse to a black hole are rather well understood for uniformly rotating models. This is not the case for differentially rotating neutron stars, which are expected to be produced in catastrophic events such as the merger of binary system of neutron stars or the collapse of a massive stellar core. We consider sequences of differentially rotating equilibrium models using the $j$-constant law and by combining them with their dynamical evolution, we show that a sufficient stability criterion for differentially rotating neutron stars exists similar to the one of their uniformly rotating counterparts. Namely: along a sequence of constant angular momentum, a dynamical instability sets in for central rest-mass densities slightly below the one of the equilibrium solution at the turning point. In addition, following Breu & Rezzolla (2016), we show that "quasi-universal" relations can be found when calculating the turning-point mass. In turn, this allows us to compute the maximum mass allowed by differential rotation, $M_{\rm max,dr}$, in terms of the maximum mass of the nonrotating configuration, $M_{_{\rm TOV}}$, finding that $M_{\rm max, dr} \simeq \left(1.54 \pm 0.05\right) M_{_{\rm TOV}}$ for all the equations of state we have considered.

Open and hidden charm in proton-nucleus and heavy-ion collisions

Abstract: We review dynamical and thermal models for the collectivity and the suppression pattern of charmed mesons — produced in proton–nucleus and nucleus–nucleus collisions at SPS (~158 A GeV) and RHIC energies (~21 A TeV). In particular, we examine the charmonium "melting" and the "comover dissociation" scenarios — implemented in a microscopic transport approach — in comparison to the available data from the SPS and RHIC. The analysis shows that the dynamics of c and quarks. quarks at RHIC are dominated by partonic or "pre-hadronic" interactions in the strongly coupled plasma stage and can neither be modeled by "hadronic" interactions nor described appropriately by color screening alone. Both the "charmonium melting" and the hadronic "comover absorption and recreation model" are found, however, to be compatible with the experimental observation at SPS energies; the experimental ratio of Ψ′/J/Ψ versus centrality clearly favors the "hadronic comover" scenario. We find that the collective flow of charm in the purely hadronic Hadron-String Dynamics (HSD) transport appears compatible with the data at SPS energies, but the data at top RHIC energies are substantially underestimated. Thus, the large elliptic flow v2 of D-mesons and the low RAA(pT) of J/Ψ seen experimentally have to be attributed to early interactions of non-hadronic degrees of freedom. Simultaneously, we observe that non-hadronic interactions are mandatory in order to describe the narrowing of the J/Ψ rapidity distribution from pp to central Au + Au collisions at the top RHIC energy of . Additionally we demonstrate that the strong quenching of high-pTJ/Ψ's in central Au + Au collisions indicates that a large fraction of final J/Ψ mesons is created by a coalescence mechanism close to the phase boundary. Throughout this review we, furthermore, provide predictions for charm observables from Au + Au collisions at FAIR energies of 25–35 A GeV.