Spin alignment of vector mesons in heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

Polarized quarks and antiquarks in high-energy heavy-ion collisions can lead to the spin alignment of vector mesons formed by quark coalescence. Using the relativistic spin Boltzmann equation for vector mesons derived from Kadanoff-Baym equations with an effective quark-meson model for strong interaction and quark coalescence model for hadronizaton, we calculate the spin density matrix element $ρ_{00}$ for $ϕ$ mesons and show that anisotropies of local field correlations or fluctuations with respect to the spin quantization direction lead to $ϕ$ meson's spin alignment. We propose that the local correlation or fluctuation of $ϕ$ fields is the dominant mechanism for the observed the $ϕ$ meson's spin alignment and its strength can be extracted from experimental data as functions of collision energies. The calculated transverse momentum dependence of $ρ_{00}$ agrees with STAR's data. We further predict the azimuthal angle dependence of $ρ_{00}$ which can be tested in future experiments.