Lévy walk of pions in heavy-ion collisions
Abstract The process of Lévy walk, i.e., movement patterns described by heavy-tailed random walks, plays a role in various phenomena, from chemical and microbiological systems through marine predators to climate change. Recent experiments have suggested that this phenomenon also appears in heavy-ion...
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Nature Portfolio
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Communications Physics |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-025-01973-x |
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| author | Dániel Kincses Márton Nagy Máté Csanád |
| author_facet | Dániel Kincses Márton Nagy Máté Csanád |
| author_sort | Dániel Kincses |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract The process of Lévy walk, i.e., movement patterns described by heavy-tailed random walks, plays a role in various phenomena, from chemical and microbiological systems through marine predators to climate change. Recent experiments have suggested that this phenomenon also appears in heavy-ion collisions. However, the theoretical interpretation supporting such findings is still debated. In high-energy collisions of heavy nuclei, the strongly interacting Quark Gluon Plasma is created, which, similarly to the early Universe, undergoes a rapid expansion and transition back to hadronic matter. In the subsequent expanding hadron gas, particles interact until kinetic freeze-out, when their momenta stop changing, and they freely transition toward the detectors. Measuring spatial freeze-out distributions is a crucial tool in understanding the dynamics of the created matter and the interactions among its constituents. In this paper, we introduce a three-dimensional analysis of the spatial freeze-out distribution of pions (the most abundant particles in such collisions). Utilising Monte-Carlo simulations of high-energy collisions, we show that the chain of processes ending in a final state pion has a step length distribution leading to Lévy-stable distributions. Subsequently, we show that simulated pion freeze-out distributions indeed exhibit heavy tails and can be described by a three-dimensional elliptically contoured symmetric Lévy-stable distribution. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e2142cb236c44fed8be3c6f52b017a2e |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2399-3650 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Communications Physics |
| spelling | doaj-art-e2142cb236c44fed8be3c6f52b017a2e2025-02-09T12:40:43ZengNature PortfolioCommunications Physics2399-36502025-02-01811910.1038/s42005-025-01973-xLévy walk of pions in heavy-ion collisionsDániel Kincses0Márton Nagy1Máté Csanád2Department of Atomic Physics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd UniversityDepartment of Atomic Physics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd UniversityDepartment of Atomic Physics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd UniversityAbstract The process of Lévy walk, i.e., movement patterns described by heavy-tailed random walks, plays a role in various phenomena, from chemical and microbiological systems through marine predators to climate change. Recent experiments have suggested that this phenomenon also appears in heavy-ion collisions. However, the theoretical interpretation supporting such findings is still debated. In high-energy collisions of heavy nuclei, the strongly interacting Quark Gluon Plasma is created, which, similarly to the early Universe, undergoes a rapid expansion and transition back to hadronic matter. In the subsequent expanding hadron gas, particles interact until kinetic freeze-out, when their momenta stop changing, and they freely transition toward the detectors. Measuring spatial freeze-out distributions is a crucial tool in understanding the dynamics of the created matter and the interactions among its constituents. In this paper, we introduce a three-dimensional analysis of the spatial freeze-out distribution of pions (the most abundant particles in such collisions). Utilising Monte-Carlo simulations of high-energy collisions, we show that the chain of processes ending in a final state pion has a step length distribution leading to Lévy-stable distributions. Subsequently, we show that simulated pion freeze-out distributions indeed exhibit heavy tails and can be described by a three-dimensional elliptically contoured symmetric Lévy-stable distribution.https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-025-01973-x |
| spellingShingle | Dániel Kincses Márton Nagy Máté Csanád Lévy walk of pions in heavy-ion collisions Communications Physics |
| title | Lévy walk of pions in heavy-ion collisions |
| title_full | Lévy walk of pions in heavy-ion collisions |
| title_fullStr | Lévy walk of pions in heavy-ion collisions |
| title_full_unstemmed | Lévy walk of pions in heavy-ion collisions |
| title_short | Lévy walk of pions in heavy-ion collisions |
| title_sort | levy walk of pions in heavy ion collisions |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-025-01973-x |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT danielkincses levywalkofpionsinheavyioncollisions AT martonnagy levywalkofpionsinheavyioncollisions AT matecsanad levywalkofpionsinheavyioncollisions |