Strangeness in quark matter 2008—experimental summary

Abstract

This contribution is a reprise of my summary talk at the conference, attempting to capture the experimental status of flavor dynamics in relativistic heavy ion collisions circa October 2008.

The influence of bulk evolution models on heavy-quark phenomenology

“…One of the striking discoveries of the heavy-ion program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is that the medium created in 200 AGeV Au-Au collisions behaves like a nearly perfect liquid [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. To further investigate this new state of matter, usually referred to as the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), penetrating and well calibrated probes are essential to quantitatively deduce the effect of the medium on those probes.…”

Influence of quenched jets on di-hadron correlations

“…We also assume that only 30% of the interjet pairs are detected, so as to account for finite detector acceptance and the swing of the away-side jet in pseudorapidity. 1 We note that for models where only the jet-jet and jetmedium pairs are included, this choice of D provides a good match for the away-side cone structure. In our simulation, we study medium response patterns where feedback hadrons are emitted equally on two sides of the original jet ("mach-cone" type) or one side of the original jet ("deflected-jet" type).…”

“…Measurement of this anisotropy may provide a constraint for elucidating the production mechanism for nearand away-side hadron pairs at intermediate p T Introduction: A new state of nuclear matter has been created in central Au+Au collisions ( √ s NN = 200 GeV) at the Relativistic Heavy-ion Collider. This matter behaves like a fluid of strongly interacting quarks and gluons as indicated by its strong collective flow, low kinetic shear viscosity, and large opacity [1]. It is now commonly referred to as the strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma (sQGP).…”