2023/11/14 by Alejandro Ayala, Santiago Bernal-Langarica, Ayala, Alejandro +10
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2311.07859
openalex publication_date 2023/11/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We compute the relaxation times for massive quarks and anti-quarks to align their spins with the angular velocity in a rigidly rotating medium at finite temperature and baryon density. The rotation effects are implemented using a fermion propagator immersed in a cylindrical rotating environment. The relaxation time is computed as the inverse of the interaction rate to produce an asymmetry between the quark (anti-quark) spin components along and opposite to the angular velocity. For conditions resembling heavy-ion collisions, the relaxation times for quarks are smaller than for anti-quarks. For semi-central collisions the relaxation time is within the possible life-time of the QGP for all collision energies. However, for anti-quarks this happens only for collision energies √sNN\gtrsim 50 GeV. The results are quantified in terms of the intrinsic quark and anti-quark polarizations, namely, the probability to build the spin asymmetry as a function of time. Our results show that these intrinsic polarizations tend to 1 with time at different rates given by the relaxation times with quarks reaching a sizable asymmetry at a faster pace. These are key results to further elucidate the mechanisms of hyperon polarization in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.