The contribution to the nuclear transverse response function R T arising from two particle-two hole (2p-2h) states excited through the action of electromagnetic meson exchange currents (MEC) is computed in a fully relativistic framework. The MEC considered are those carried by the pion and by ∆ degrees of freedom, the latter being viewed as a virtual nucleonic resonance. The calculation is performed in the relativistic Fermi gas model in which Lorentz covariance can be maintained.All 2p-2h many-body diagrams containing two pionic lines that contribute to R T are taken into account and the relative impact of the various components of the MEC on R T is addressed. The non-relativistic limit of the MEC contributions is also discussed and compared with the relativistic results to explore the role played by relativity in obtaining the 2p-2h nuclear response.

The propagation of the heavy quarks produced in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC is studied within the framework of Langevin dynamics in the background of an expanding deconfined medium described by ideal and viscous hydrodynamics. The transport coefficients entering into the relativistic Langevin equation are evaluated by matching the hard-thermal-loop result for soft collisions with a perturbative QCD calculation for hard scatterings. The heavy-quark spectra thus obtained are employed to compute the differential cross sections, the nuclear modification factors RAA and the elliptic flow coefficients v2 of electrons from heavy-flavour decay.

The Schroedinger equation for the charmonium and bottomonium states at finite temperature is solved by employing an effective temperature dependent potential given by a linear combination of the color singlet free and internal energies obtained on the lattice from the Polyakov loop correlation functions. The melting temperatures and other properties of the quarkonium states are evaluated.The consistency of the potential model approach with the available lattice data on the quarkonium temporal correlators and spectral functions is explored.

We present a quantitative study of vorticity formation in peripheral ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at √ s NN = 200 GeV by using the ECHO-QGP numerical code, implementing relativistic dissipative hydrodynamics in the causal Israel-Stewart framework in 3 + 1 dimensions with an initial Bjorken flow profile. We consider different definitions of vorticity which are relevant in relativistic hydrodynamics. After demonstrating the excellent capabilities of our code, which proves to be able to reproduce Gubser flow up to 8 fm/c, we show that, with the initial conditions needed to reproduce the measured directed flow in peripheral collisions corresponding to an average impact parameter b = 11.6 fm and with the Bjorken flow profile for a viscous Quark Gluon Plasma with η/s = 0.1 fixed, a vorticity of the order of some 10 −2 c/fm can develop at freeze-out. The ensuing polarization of baryons does not exceed 1.4 % at midrapidity. We show that the amount of developed directed flow is sensitive to both the initial angular momentum of the plasma and its viscosity.

We present results for the quenching, elliptic flow and azimuthal correlations of heavy-flavor particles in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions obtained through the POWLANG transport setup, developed in the past to study the propagation of heavy quarks in the Quark-Gluon Plasma and here extended to include a modeling of their hadronization in the presence of a medium. Hadronization is described as occurring via the fragmentation of strings with endpoints given by the heavy (anti-) quark Q(Q) and a thermal parton q(q) from the medium. The flow of the light quarks is shown to affect significantly the R AA and v 2 of the final D mesons, leading to a better agreement with the experimental data. The approach allows also predictions for the angular correlation between heavy-flavor hadrons (or their decay electrons) and the charged particles produced in the fragmentation of the heavy-quark strings.