Quark gluon plasma which does not behave as it should

The first interesting findings from LHC have been reported. The full article is here. In some proton-proton collisions more than hundred particles are produced suggesting a single object from which they are produced. Since the density of matter approaches to that observed in heavy ion collisions for five years ago at RHIC, a formation of quark gluon plasma and its subsequent decay is what one would expect. The observations are not however quite what QCD plasma picture would allow to expect. What is so striking is the evolution of long range correlations between particles in events containing more than 90 particles as the transverse momentum of the particles increases in the range 1-3 GeV (see the excellent description of the correlations by Lubos).

One studies correlation function for two particles as a function of two variables. The first variable is the difference Δ φ for the emission angles and second is essentially the difference for the velocities described relativistically by the difference Δ η for hyperbolic angles. As the transverse momentum p_T increases the correlation function develops structure. Around origin of Δ η axis a widening plateau develops near Δ Φ=0. Also a wide ridge with almost constant value as function of Δ η develops near Δ φ=π. What this means that particles tend to move collinearly and or in opposite directions. In the latter case their velocity differences are large since they move in opposite directions so that a long ridge develops in Δ η direction.

Ideal QCD plasma would predict no correlations between particles and therefore no structures like this. The radiation of particles would be like blackbody radiation with no correlations between photons. The description in terms of string like object proposed also by Lubos on basis of analysis of the graph showing the distributions as an explanation of correlations looks attractive. The decay of a string like structure producing particles at its both ends moving nearly parallel to the string to opposite directions could be in question.

Since the densities of particles approach those at RHIC, I would bet that the explanation (whatever it is!) of the hydrodynamical behavior observed at RHIC for some years ago should apply also now. When RHIC was in blogs, I constructed a primitive poor man's model for RHIC events and found that I had mentioned stringy structures - among many other things that I would not perhaps mention anymore;-). The introduction of string like objects was natural since in TGD framework even ordinary nuclei are string like objects with nucleons connected by color flux tubes (see this): this predicts a lot of new nuclear physics for which there is some evidence. The basic idea was that in the high density hadronic color flux tubes associated with the colliding nucleon connect to form long highly entangled hadronic strings containing quark gluon plasma. The decay of these structure would explain the strange correlations.

Note: TGD is not string theory although I talk a lot about strings like objects: these objects are three-dimensional and they are an essential element of almost all physics predicted by TGD. Even elementary particles should look string like objects in electro-weak length scales (Kähler magnetic flux tubes with magnetic charges at their ends).

Let us list the main assumptions of the model for the RHIC events and those observed now. Consider first the "macroscopic description".

1. A critical system associated with confinement-deconfinement transition of the quark-gluon plasma formed in the collision and inhibiting long range correlations would be in question.

2. The proposed hydrodynamic space-time description was in terms of a scaled variant of what I call critical cosmology defining a universal space-time correlate for criticality: the specific property of this cosmology is that the mass contained by comoving volume approaches to zero at the the initial moment so that Big Bang begins as a silent whisper and is not so scaring;-). Criticality means flat 3-space instead of Lobatchevski space and means breaking of Lorentz invariance to SO(4). Breaking of Lorentz invariance was indeed observed for particle distributions but now I am not so sure whether it has much to do with this.

The microscopic level the description would be like follows.

1. A highly entangled long hadronic string like object (color-magnetic flux tube) would be formed at high density of nucleons via the fusion of ordinary hadronic color-magnetic flux tubes to much longer one and containing quark gluon plasma. In QCD world plasma would not be at flux tube.

2. This entangled string like object would straighten and split to hadrons in the subsequent "cosmological evolution" and yield large numbers of almost collinear particles. The initial situation should be apart from scaling similar as in cosmology where a highly entangled soup of cosmic strings (magnetic flux tubes) precedes the space-time as we understand it. Maybe ordinary cosmology could provide analogy as galaxies arranged to form linear structures?

3. This structure would have also black hole like aspects but in totally different sense as the 10-D hadronic black-hole proposed by Nastase to describe the findings. Note that M-theorists identify black holes as highly entangled strings: in TGD 1-D strings are replaced by 3-D string like objects.