Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
pQCD energy loss and thermal field theory in small systems
In recent years, experiments at the Large Hadron Collider and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider have discovered that many of the signatures that are traditionally ascribed to the presence of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in central heavy-ion collisions also manifest in certain classes of peripheral h...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | Eng |
| Published: |
Department of Physics
2019
|
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613217589559296 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Kolbe, Isobel |
| author2 | Horowitz, William A. |
| author_browse | Horowitz, William A. Kolbe, Isobel |
| author_facet | Horowitz, William A. Kolbe, Isobel |
| author_sort | Kolbe, Isobel |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | In recent years, experiments at the Large Hadron Collider and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider have discovered that many of the signatures that are traditionally ascribed to the presence of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in central heavy-ion collisions also manifest in certain classes of peripheral heavy-ion collisions as well as in smaller colliding systems. The glaring exception to this list of observations of QGP signatures in small systems is the partonic energy loss. However, current theoretical descriptions of partonic energy loss are ill-adapted to small systems. This thesis first presents a numerical analysis of an analytical small system extension of a standard energy loss formula, and finds that major inconsistencies in the description of small system energy loss persist, motivating a need for a first principles calculation of the properties of a small droplet of QGP. Thereafter, a first step toward such a calculation is presented by considering a single, massless, scalar field that has been geometrically confined by means of Dirichlet boundary conditions. This toy model reveals, via thermal field theoretic techniques, that quantum fields are very sensitive to the presence of a boundary, presenting significant deviations from the Stefan-Boltzmann limit and revealing a geometrically driven phase transition at the scale of the medium. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/30385 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | Eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:38.580Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publishDateRange | 2019 |
| publishDateSort | 2019 |
| publisher | Department of Physics |
| publisherStr | Department of Physics |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/30385 pQCD energy loss and thermal field theory in small systems Kolbe, Isobel Horowitz, William A. In recent years, experiments at the Large Hadron Collider and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider have discovered that many of the signatures that are traditionally ascribed to the presence of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in central heavy-ion collisions also manifest in certain classes of peripheral heavy-ion collisions as well as in smaller colliding systems. The glaring exception to this list of observations of QGP signatures in small systems is the partonic energy loss. However, current theoretical descriptions of partonic energy loss are ill-adapted to small systems. This thesis first presents a numerical analysis of an analytical small system extension of a standard energy loss formula, and finds that major inconsistencies in the description of small system energy loss persist, motivating a need for a first principles calculation of the properties of a small droplet of QGP. Thereafter, a first step toward such a calculation is presented by considering a single, massless, scalar field that has been geometrically confined by means of Dirichlet boundary conditions. This toy model reveals, via thermal field theoretic techniques, that quantum fields are very sensitive to the presence of a boundary, presenting significant deviations from the Stefan-Boltzmann limit and revealing a geometrically driven phase transition at the scale of the medium. 2019-08-01T08:11:42Z 2019-08-01T08:11:42Z 2019 2019-07-31T08:12:58Z Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30385 Eng application/pdf Department of Physics Faculty of Science |
| spellingShingle | Kolbe, Isobel pQCD energy loss and thermal field theory in small systems |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | pQCD energy loss and thermal field theory in small systems |
| title_full | pQCD energy loss and thermal field theory in small systems |
| title_fullStr | pQCD energy loss and thermal field theory in small systems |
| title_full_unstemmed | pQCD energy loss and thermal field theory in small systems |
| title_short | pQCD energy loss and thermal field theory in small systems |
| title_sort | pqcd energy loss and thermal field theory in small systems |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30385 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kolbeisobel pqcdenergylossandthermalfieldtheoryinsmallsystems |