Angular correlations of high-pT hadrons can serve as a probe of interactions of partons with the dense medium produced in high-energy heavy-ion collisions but other sources of such correlations exist which can be non-negligible SPS energies. In an attempt to determine the primary source, NA49 has performed an energy and system-size scan of two-particle azimuthal correlations in central Pb+Pb, S...

DIHADRON FRAGMENTATION FUNCTIONS INPROTON+PROTON COLLISIONS AT THE RELATIVISTIC HEAVYION COLLIDER (RHIC)byMUHAMMAD ELNIMRAugust 2010 Advisor: Dr. Claude Pruneau Major: High Energy Nuclear Physics Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Measurements of azimuthal correlations at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider(RHIC) have shown an away-side that is suppressed in Au+Au collisio...

We present high transverse momentum (p T) measurements made at the Relativis-tic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) for Au+Au, d+Au, and p+p collisions at √ s N N = 200 GeV, as well as for Au+Au collisions at √ s N N = 62 GeV. We observe a suppression in the yield of high p T hadrons measured in central Au+Au collisions, relative to the yield in p+p collisions scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucl...

We describe in detail how the different components of a multiphase transport (AMPT) model that uses the heavy ion jet interaction generator (HIJING) for generating the initial conditions, Zhang’s parton cascade (ZPC) for modeling partonic scatterings, the Lund string fragmentation model or a quark coalescence model for hadronization, and a relativistic transport (ART) model for treating hadroni...

The distributions for strangeness, electric charge and baryon number are explored in heavy ion collisions within the hadron resonance gas model. The proximity of the freeze-out curve to the phase boundary indicates that the QCD phase transition and its related critical properties should be observable in heavy ion collisions. However, an experimental verification of a phase change in a medium cr...

In these lectures I review the foundations and the applications of the statistical hadronization model to elementary and relativistic heavy ion collisions. The role of strangeness production and the general interpretation of results is addressed. Lectures given at the 4th edition of the school Quark-Gluon Plasma and Heavy Ion Collisions : past, present, future Torino (Italy), 8-14 December 2008

Jet quenching measurements using leading particles and their correlations suffer from known biases, which can be removed via direct reconstruction of jets in central heavy ion collisions. In this talk, we discuss several modern jet reconstruction algorithms and background subtraction techniques that are appropriate to heavy ion collisions.

We argue that Clustering in heavy ion collisions could be the missing element in resolving the so-called HBT puzzle, and briefly discuss the different physical situations where clustering could be present. We then propose a method by which clustering in heavy ion collisions could be detected in a model-independent way