Abstract: Heavy-ion collisions, such as Pb-Pb or p-Pb, produce extreme conditions in temperature and density that make the hadronic matter transition to a new state, called quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Simulations of heavy-ion collisions provide a way to improve our understanding of the QGP's properties. These simulations are composed of a hybrid description that results in final observables in agreement with accelerators like LHC and RHIC. However, recent works pointed out that these hydrodynamic simulations can display acausal behavior during the evolution in certain regions, indicating a deviation from a faithful representation of the underlying QCD dynamics. To pursue a better understanding of this problem and its consequences, this work simulated two different collision systems, Pb-Pb and p-Pb at root sNN = 5.02 TeV. In this context, our results show that causality violation, even though always present, typically occurs on a small part of the system, quantified by the total energy fraction residing in the acausal region. In addition, the acausal behavior can be reduced with changes in the prehydrodynamic factors and the definition of the bulk-viscous relaxation time. Since these aspects are fairly arbitrary in current simulation models, without solid guidance from the underlying theory, it is reasonable to use the disturbing presence of acausal behavior in current simulations to guide improvements towards more realistic modeling. While this work does not solve the acausality problem, it sheds more light on this issue and also proposes a way to solve this problem in simulations of heavy-ion collisions.

Abstract: We discuss the modification of the properties of the tetraquark-like Tcc(3875)+ and Tc over bar c over bar (3875)- states in dense nuclear matter. We consider the Tcc+ and Tc over bar c over bar – in vacuum as purely isoscalar D*D and D*D S-wave bound states, respectively, dynamically generated from a heavy-quark effective interaction between the charmed mesons. We compute the D, D, D*, and D* spectral functions embedded in a nuclear medium and use them to determine the corresponding Tcc+ and Tc over bar c over bar – self-energies and spectral functions. We find important modifications of the D*D and D*D scattering amplitudes and of the pole position of these exotic states already for p0/2, with p0 the normal nuclear density. We also discuss the dependence of these results on the D*D (D*D) molecular component in the Tcc+ (Tc over bar c- over bar ) wave function. Owing to the different nature of the D(*)N and D(*)N interactions, we find characteristic changes of the in-medium properties of the Tcc(3875)+ and Tc over bar c over bar (3875)-, which become increasingly visible as the density increases. The experimental confirmation of the found distinctive density pattern will give support to the existence of molecular components in these tetraquark-like states, since in the case they were mostly colorless compact quark structures (cct over bar t over bar and c over bar c over bar tt, with t = u, d), the density behaviors of the Tcc(3875)+ and Tc over bar c over bar (3875)- nuclear medium spectral functions, though different, would not likely be the same as those found in this work for molecular scenarios. Finally, we perform similar analyses for the isoscalar JP = 1+ heavy-quark spin symmetry partners of the Tcc+ (T cc *+ ) and the T c over bar c- over bar (T*- c over bar c over bar ) by considering the D*0D*+ and D*0D*- scattering T matrices.

Abstract: Measurements of the suppression and correlations of dijets is performed using 3µb−1 of Xe+Xe data at √sNN=5.44 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Dijets with jets reconstructed using the R=0.4 anti-kt algorithm are measured differentially in jet pT over the range of 32 to 398 GeV and the centrality of the collisions. Significant dijet momentum imbalance is found in the most central Xe+Xe collisions, which decreases in more peripheral collisions. Results from the measurement of per-pair normalized and absolutely normalized dijet pT balance are compared with previous Pb+Pb measurements at √sNN=5.02 TeV. The differences between the dijet suppression in Xe+Xe and Pb+Pb are further quantified by the ratio of pair nuclear-modification factors. The results are found to be consistent with those measured in Pb+Pb data when compared in classes of the same event activity and when taking into account the difference between the center-of-mass energies of the initial parton scattering process in Xe+Xe and Pb+Pb collisions. These results should provide input for a better understanding of the role of energy density, system size, path length, and fluctuations in the parton energy loss.