Elliptic flow and spectra of strange hadrons at LHC

• Grant number: 11/01327-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: July 01, 2011
• End date: November 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Elementary Particle Physics and Fields
• Principal Investigator: Jun Takahashi
• Grantee: Ajay Kumar Dash
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin (IFGW). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

We propose participation in the ALICE experiment of the LHC accelerator, through the group of the Departamento de Raios Cosmicos e Cronologia, in the Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin, at the State University of Campinas, UNICAMP. In this project, we propose to study the reaction of heavy Ions at the LHC through the measurement of the elliptic flow of strange and multi-strange hadrons as a function of pT at mid-rapidity. Through this we will address the following physics topics: (a) Number of constituent quark scaling of v2 to look for signatures of partonic collectivity and (b) Mass dependence of v2 vs. pT at low pT to study hydrodynamic behavior. We also propose to study the pT spectra of strange hadrons to address the following physics: (a) Low pT part will provide information of kinetic freeze-out conditions at LHC energies (Temperature and radial flow velocity), (b) pT integrated yields will provide information on chemical freeze-out conditions (Temperature, chemical potential and strangeness equilibration factor) and (c) High pT yields will address parton energy loss mechanism at LHC energies. This project is part of and contributes to a wider project of the UNICAMP group to study Heavy Ion Collisions in relativistic energies to understand the characteristics of matter under extreme conditions. In addition to the physics topics that will be developed in this project, this will establish a international collaboration between the UNICAMP group and groups in India from the home institution of the candidate. (AU)