Re: [Brahms-dev-l] FW: Your_manuscript CS10219 Arsene

From: Ramiro Debbe <debbe_at_rcf.rhic.bnl.gov>
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 20:36:15 -0400
What about mid-rapidity. The referee is right, we are dealing with very geometric quantities and disregard our ability to change the geometry of the collisions. I was more afraid of man power problems.
Ramiro
On Aug 6, 2010, at 8:29 PM, flemming videbaek wrote:

> I would think that getting centrality at high t will get difficult - at the present centrality we have 20-30 counts for deuterons, going to kess central we can likely only get ~10-14 counts at most. Protons is not an issue of course.
> 
> Flemming
> 
> Flemming Videbaek
> videbaek @ bnl.gov
> Brookhaven National Lab
> Physics Department
> Bldg 510D
> Upton, NY 11973
> 
> phone: 631-344-4106
> cell     :  631-681-1596
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Aug 6, 2010, at 8:22 PM, Ramiro Debbe wrote:
> 
>> Great referee!  (with Jamaican accent?)
>> Can we get some centrality dependence?
>> His comments about our physics arguments are sobering but we can certainly use his advice and improve our arguments.
>> Ramiro
>> On Aug 6, 2010, at 6:05 PM, flemming videbaek wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Michael,
>>> I am going on vacation next week. I suggest you take the lead and
>>> discuss it next Friday. JH will setup and lead that meeting
>>> 
>>> Flemming
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Flemming Videbaek
>>> videbaek @ bnl.gov
>>> Brookhaven National Lab
>>> Physics Department
>>> Bldg 510D
>>> Upton, NY 11973
>>> 
>>> phone: 631-344-4106
>>> cell     :  631-681-1596
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Aug 6, 2010, at 5:20 PM, Murray, Michael J wrote:
>>> 
>>>> FYI
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Michael
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: prc_at_aps.org [mailto:prc_at_aps.org]
>>>> Sent: Fri 8/6/2010 12:48 PM
>>>> To: Murray, Michael J
>>>> Subject: Your_manuscript CS10219 Arsene
>>>> 
>>>> Re: CS10219
>>>> Rapidity dependence of deuteron production in Au+Au collisions at
>>>> sqrt s NN=200 GeV
>>>> by I. Arsene, I. G. Bearden, D. Beavis, et al.
>>>> 
>>>> Dear Dr. Murray,
>>>> 
>>>> The above manuscript has been reviewed by one of our referees.
>>>> Comments
>>>> from the report appear below.
>>>> 
>>>> These comments suggest that specific revisions of your manuscript are
>>>> in order. When you resubmit your manuscript, please include a summary
>>>> of the changes made and a succinct response to all recommendations or
>>>> criticisms contained in the report.
>>>> 
>>>> Yours sincerely,
>>>> 
>>>> Bradley Rubin
>>>> Senior Assistant Editor
>>>> Physical Review C
>>>> Email: prc_at_ridge.aps.org
>>>> Fax: 631-591-4141
>>>> http://prc.aps.org/
>>>> 
>>>> Physics - spotlighting exceptional research: http://physics.aps.org/
>>>> 
>>>> PROBLEMS WITH MANUSCRIPT:
>>>> 
>>>> In reviewing the figures of your paper, we note that the following
>>>> changes would be needed in order for your figures to conform to the
>>>> style of the Physical Review.  Please check all figures for the
>>>> following problems and make appropriate changes in the text of the
>>>> paper itself wherever needed for consistency.
>>>> 
>>>> Figure(s) [4]
>>>>       Please rearrange power of 10 in axis label for clarity:
>>>> Either
>>>>       (i) place the power of 10 as a factor, without parentheses,
>>>>       in front of the axis label quantity, changing the sign of the
>>>>       power as needed; or (ii) incorporate the power of 10 in the
>>>>       topmost or rightmost number on the scale.  Please refer to
>>>>       the URL http://forms.aps.org/author/h18graphaxislbls.pdf
>>>> for a
>>>>       pictorial representation of the preferred forms for axis
>>>> labels.
>>>> 
>>>> Figure(s) [please check all and amend where necessary]
>>>>       The lettering in the axis labels and/or numbering size
>>>> should be
>>>>       increased. Please ensure that all lettering is 2 mm or larger
>>>>       (1.5 mm for superscripts and subscripts) after scaling to the
>>>>       final publication size. Note that the column width is 8.6 cm
>>>>       (twice that amount plus gutter for extra wide figures).
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Please remove the redundant arXiv references for published papers.
>>>> For your information, the editorial office checks the references at
>>>> several crucial steps during the editorial process. A list of
>>>> unnecessary
>>>> arXiv references slows the process down considerably--particularly so,
>>>> if the list is long--and delays the processing of your manuscript.
>>>> 
>>>> Please note that the copy editors will remove such redundant links
>>>> during
>>>> production for those papers that have been accepted for publication.
>>>> However, any manual intervention carries the risk of inadvertently
>>>> introducing mistakes.
>>>> 
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Report of the Referee -- CS10219/Arsene
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> 
>>>> Executive Summary:
>>>> -----------------------------------------
>>>> The paper is a straightforward, almost minimalist, presentation
>>>> of a data set on proton and deuteron production in central Au+Au
>>>> RHIC collisions over a wide range of rapidity, and antiproton and
>>>> antideuteron production over a smaller range in rapidity.  The
>>>> data are interpreted in terms of a standard coalescence picture
>>>> and an extracted phase space density; some trends are noted but
>>>> no definite physics conclusions are drawn.  As a simple data
>>>> presentation exercise the paper is generally acceptable, though
>>>> the physics impact of the data are significantly limited by
>>>> being restricted to only central collisions in only one bin of
>>>> centrality.
>>>> 
>>>> Though I would not suggest it as a requirement for publication
>>>> in the Physical Review, I would urge the authors to consider
>>>> enlarging the paper to include data from a greater range of
>>>> centrality classes -- based on the error bars shown in Fig 5
>>>> it certainly looks as though sufficient statistics would be
>>>> available.
>>>> 
>>>> Modulo that decision, the paper has a number of minor errors
>>>> in the physics introduction which should be addressed, as
>>>> detailed below.  My basic recommendation, then, is that the
>>>> paper will be suitable for publication with minor corrections.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Concerns:
>>>> --------------------------------------
>>>> (1) Centrality selection.  The data presented in Fig 3 are for some
>>>> particular event selection; but which?  One needs to scan the
>>>> paper in some detail (or use a computer text search) to find
>>>> the lone sentence "We present ... AuAu collisions with a centrality
>>>> range of 0-20%."  in the first paragraph under Section II. Analysis.
>>>> (Note that this sentence itself is not quite grammatically correct.)
>>>> 
>>>> Physics: Why was this one, and only one, centrality range chosen
>>>> for this analysis?  There is no motivation mentioned in the paper
>>>> at all, which is quite puzzling.  The paper describes interpretation
>>>> in terms of geometrical quantities such as the coherence volume
>>>> implied
>>>> by the B_2 measurement; it is only natural to ask, then, how these
>>>> might change as the collision geometry/centrality is changed.  To
>>>> present data from only one centrality selection, with no explanation,
>>>> seems quite odd and un-natural, and I would call it a glaring defect.
>>>> There is of course a limit on available particle statistics, but it
>>>> is far from clear (partly because there is so little detail provided
>>>> on the error analysis) that no statement could be made for any other
>>>> selections, even by breaking the current one into two.
>>>> 
>>>> Analysis: The section on the data analysis should include a
>>>> description
>>>> of how the events were selected on centrality.
>>>> 
>>>> Formatting: Assuming that the paper is to be published on just the
>>>> central collision results, that fact should be made clear throughout
>>>> the work: it should appear in the title, in the abstract, in the
>>>> summary and in the captions of all the figures and tables.  And,
>>>> for that matter, the main data graphs such as Fig 3 should also
>>>> state that these results are for the Au+Au collision system!
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> (2) Error analysis.  The presentation in Table I does a good basic job
>>>> of explaining the uncertainties: statistical errors are in the table,
>>>> systematics are characterized in the text.  All of the figures and
>>>> tables should rise to this same standard:  what is shown by the errors
>>>> that are displayed?  and what are the sizes of the other sources?
>>>> 
>>>> Elsewhere the treatment of uncertainties is uneven.  The discussion
>>>> of errors from the feed-down correction in Section II.D is quite
>>>> quantitative; while the preceding section II.C on particle
>>>> identification describes inefficiencies and contaminations, but does
>>>> not quote anything quantitative for the residual uncertainties from
>>>> these effects.  At a minimum the reader should be able to appreciate
>>>> the relative contributions of statistical versus systematic
>>>> uncertainties, and what the dominant source is for the systematic,
>>>> for every quantity quoted and plotted in the paper.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> (3) Abstract: "in contrast to lower energy data".  This should be
>>>> re-worded to make clear that it refers to data from collisions
>>>> at lower collision energies, rather than lower secondary particle
>>>> energies.
>>>> 
>>>> (4) p1 col2: "surrounding ... medium ensure energy and momentum
>>>> conservation".  "Ensure" would be better as "allow" or "permit"
>>>> or "enable".  Conservation laws always "ensure" that they are
>>>> followed; the role of the medium is to "allow" p + n -> d
>>>> to proceed without the need to emit a photon.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> (5) p1 col2 "As deuterons are formed inside the expanding system"
>>>> Is this really true?  How do you know?  One could make the simple
>>>> argument that particle within the medium are colliding often
>>>> enough, on the order of once per ~1-10 fm/c or faster in the time
>>>> before freezeout, then the constituent protons and neutrons will
>>>> on average be off their mass shell by ~200-20 MeV at any given
>>>> moment; if this is true, then how can one even distinguish a
>>>> deuteron bound state, whose binding energy is only 2 MeV?
>>>> The bound/unbound distinction doesn't apply over such short
>>>> time scales.
>>>> The same misconception appears later in the same paragraph
>>>> with the phrase "deuterons are most likely formed very near
>>>> freeze-out".  What, exactly, does "formed" mean here?  In order
>>>> for a p,n pair to be meaningfully distinguished as either bound
>>>> or unbound, the degree to which they are off-mass-shell must be
>>>> no larger than the bound-state binding energy.  This implies that
>>>> bound-state deuterons cannot even be _defined_ until ~100 fm/c
>>>> have passed since the particles' last momentum transfer
>>>> interaction, ie freezeout; this time frame cannot be described
>>>> as "very near freezeout."  It really makes no sense to say that
>>>> deuterons are "formed" on a timescale faster than they can even
>>>> be distinguished or defined, whether inside the colliding system
>>>> or following freezeout, so this whole passage of the
>>>> introduction is really misconceived.
>>>> The reason that sudden-approximation coalescence models can
>>>> work is more subtle, quantum mechanically.  After the last
>>>> momentum exchanges, ie freezeout, all the protons and neutrons
>>>> will be in wavefunctions which span a range of masses around
>>>> their free-particle on-shell rest mass.  The off-shell
>>>> combinations of momentum and energy will decay away with time,
>>>> ie the amplitude of those parts of the wavefunctions will
>>>> diminish and only the on-shell states will have significant
>>>> amplitudes.  So, looking into the future at the time of
>>>> freezeout it is reasonable to count only the on-shell states
>>>> for future accounting purposes; but the off-shell states are
>>>> still present in the wavefunction at that time.
>>>> For this reason, one can get reasonable answers from a
>>>> coalescence model while neglecting these off-shell subtleties.
>>>> But, by the same token, there is no excuse at this point in
>>>> the field for leaving a sloppy definition of "formed" in the
>>>> introduction to a paper like this, and the section should be
>>>> rewritten without this misconception.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> (6) p1 col2: "Coalescence models assume that the distribution
>>>> of clusters..."; "density" or "phase-space density" would be
>>>> better than "distribution"
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> (7) p1 col2 and Eq. 1: The references [1-3] quoted to
>>>> introduce the notation of the coalescence picture in Eq. 1
>>>> are incomplete; they date from the Bevelac era (or earlier),
>>>> when the notation C_2 was used for the proportionality
>>>> similar to that in Eq. 1 but with cross sections rather than
>>>> per-event densities.  The B_2 notation used here was originated
>>>> during the AGS fixed-target heavy-ion program, starting with
>>>> E858 and then E864 and E878; and it is a rather glaring
>>>> omission that not all of these experiments are referenced in
>>>> this paper, which should be corrected.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> (8) p1 col2: Mention is made of the n/p ratio in lower-energy
>>>> collision data, but the meaning and significance are not clear
>>>> at all.  What system was this for?  Does this n/p ratio
>>>> correspond to that of the incoming nuclei, or not?  Is the
>>>> implication that Eq. 1 should be modified, or assigned a 20%
>>>> systematic error?  If not, why not?  The bare inclusion of
>>>> this observation, without any details, explanation or
>>>> implication is simply confusing and not helpful to the reader.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> (9) p2 col1: "B_2 carries information about the cluster"
>>>> What do you mean by "cluster"?  Is it the deuteron itself, as
>>>> implied on the previous page with the phrase "the distribution
>>>> of clusters"?  Or does "cluster" mean the system as a whole?
>>>> Neither really makes sense; B_2 doesn't really tell you
>>>> anything about the deuteron itself per se; and it's strange,
>>>> as well as inconsistent with the previous page, to refer to
>>>> refer to the whole system as a "cluster".
>>>> 
>>>> (10) p2 col1: "B_2 ... is consistent with measurements of
>>>> the deuteron wave-function."  This is a very strange and
>>>> jarring statement to read at this point in the paper, since
>>>> there has been no discussion up to this point on how the
>>>> deuteron's spatial properties figure into the value of B_2
>>>> through the coalescence process or otherwise.
>>>> 
>>>> (11) Also, this statement is referenced to Ref 5, but only
>>>> vague mention is made of what collision systems or what
>>>> collision energies are being referred to; this makes it
>>>> somewhat strange to read in the very next sentence that
>>>>> = 4.9 GeV is the threshold of "high energy".  It would
>>>> be clearer to state the energy ranges, and at least whether
>>>> heavy or light nuclei are involved, for all the data being
>>>> referred to (this remark applies in several other places
>>>> throughout the current paper, as already mentioned in
>>>> point 8 above).
>>>> 
>>>> (12) p2 col1: "assuming the region where the coalescence
>>>> occurs has also a Gaussian shape"  See point 5 above; the
>>>> region which sources/radiates the nucleons is not the same
>>>> thing as the region where coalescence occurs.  Note also
>>>> that "spatial profile" would be better than "shape" in
>>>> this sentence.
>>>> 
>>>> (13) p2 col1: "this ansatz ... facilitates comparison to
>>>> interferometry radii".  A traditional point; but, how does
>>>> the comparison work in this case?  First, should the R_G
>>>> from the coalescence framework analysis be compared
>>>> directly to any of the R parameters from HBT analysis?
>>>> or is there a factor of 2, or pi, etc between them?
>>>> Is this paper going to actually make the comparison?
>>>> if not, then you should provide a reference to how the
>>>> comparison should be done.
>>>> 
>>>> (14) p2 col1: "However, it has been suggested that..."
>>>> This certainly needs a reference, or several, at this point.
>>>> 
>>>> (15) p2 col1: The middle paragraph discusses the results
>>>> of deuteron production following a quark coalescence picture,
>>>> which is a subject of considerable current interest.  However,
>>>> the logic is not laid out clearly here.  Isn't it true, for
>>>> example, that if protons follow the quark coalescence picture
>>>> and deuterons follow the nucleon coalescence picture, then
>>>> deuterons automatically/necessarily follow quark coalescence
>>>> as well?  ie isn't quark coalescence for deuterons redundant
>>>> with nucleon coalescence? and so not really an independent
>>>> piece of information.  Alternatively, is the statement that
>>>> deuterons follow quark coalescence equivalent to B_2 being
>>>> constant with pT?  But here B_2 is not constant with pT, as
>>>> we see in Fig 4; doesn't that have immediate implications for
>>>> quark coalescence interpretation of the present data?
>>>> In general this section should be written so as to make
>>>> it clear to the reader what are, and are not, redundant versus
>>>> independent pieces of information.
>>>> 
>>>> (16) p2 col1: The start of the discussion of discussion of
>>>> phase-space densities in the last paragraph should have at
>>>> least a few references right at the beginning, especially
>>>> as to the motivations.  Why is this an interesting quantity?
>>>> The text mentions (i) an indicator or measure of the degree
>>>> of equilibrium, which is directly connected to entropy,
>>>> and (ii) "information about ... symmetrization efects".
>>>> Reasonable enough; but what's the upshot?  What do the results
>>>> shown in Fig 5 demonstrate?  Trends are noted in Section III,
>>>> but what about the basic magnitude of the measured quantity?
>>>> is it high, is it low?
>>>> 
>>>> (17) p2 col2: The result of Eq. 5 is correct only for a true
>>>> global equilibrium, with one universal temperature and where
>>>> the particles have equal access to the entire relevant volume.
>>>> The text acknowledges this, but only in a roundabout way with
>>>> the later remark "we are ignoring the collective motion of the
>>>> particles", as collective motion is a departure from true
>>>> global equilibrium (also, "neglecting the possibility of" is
>>>> more accurate than "ignoring" here).  But since collective
>>>> motion probably is the case in RHIC Au+Au collisions, from the
>>>> B_2 results shown here as well as a host of other evidence,
>>>> it is left unclear to what extent Eq.'s 5 - 9 should still be
>>>> considered relevant.  For example, in the statement farther down,
>>>> attributed to Ref 23, that strong longitudinal flow could
>>>> significantly reduce pion phase space densities, it is not clear
>>>> if this is a true result about the actual density or an artifact
>>>> of Eq. 5 and its corollaries being invalid in the extraction of
>>>> the measured phase-space density.
>>>> In general the utility of a framework which assumes global
>>>> equilibrium to a system which probably exhibits only local
>>>> equilibrium needs to be explained more carefully; if T is a
>>>> function of space, then is Eq. 5 still true at a point?  In
>>>> the case of collective motion being significant, is Eq. 3
>>>> defined over some relevant coherence volume?  etc.
>>>> 
>>>> (18) p2 col2: "the maximum space averaged phase-space density,
>>>> which is at the center of the Gaussian source."  Sorry, but
>>>> this makes no sense at al: a spatial average is not defined
>>>> for different points within the space.  The confusion over
>>>> the relevant spatial volumes mentioned in point 17 above
>>>> is clearly causing serious trouble here.
>>>> 
>>>> (19) p2 col2: In Eq. 9, is R_G a function of particle
>>>> momentum, particularly pT?  Presumably so, and if so then it
>>>> would be useful to write the dependence explicitly here.
>>>> 
>>>> (20) Minor formatting: the text following Eq. 5 should
>>>> probably be left-justified rather than indented.  It is not
>>>> clear whether the text following Eq.'s 4 and 6 should or
>>>> should not start new paragraphs, either.
>>>> 
>>>> (21) The presentation of Eq. 6 in terms of chemical potential
>>>> is formally correct, but at the same time obscure -- in the
>>>> dilute limit, what is the value of these chemical potentials?
>>>> Is it just the particle mass, which would make Eq. (6)
>>>> equivalent to exp[-mT/T] at all rapidities?  or does it vary
>>>> significantly with the net baryon density, which changes
>>>> considerably with rapidity (as BRAHMS has made clear in
>>>> other measurements)?
>>>> 
>>>> (22) p5 col2: "expect the ratio of the proton and antiproton
>>>> phase densities to be flat"; is this as a function of
>>>> rapidity?  or pT?  or both?
>>>> 
>>>> (23) Summary, but also relevant to several sections of the
>>>> paper: There is a reasonable interpretation here that the
>>>> B_2 and phase space density measurements have information
>>>> about the existence of collective flow, particularly what
>>>> is called radial flow.  This is certainly valuable and
>>>> worth publishing.  However, the current paper doesn't say
>>>> much about whether these implications are or are not
>>>> consistent with the great body of work that has now been
>>>> done on modeling RHIC A+A collisions with hydrodynamics.
>>>> It is not necessarily the responsibility of this paper
>>>> to make a full-blown analysis, but the reader deserves some
>>>> basic orientation: are the results shown here generally
>>>> consistent with existing hydrodynamical models?  or is
>>>> there some kind of surprise or contradiction brewing?
>>>> 
>>>> 
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