No Arabic abstract
We report the first measurements of the kurtosis (kappa), skewness (S) and variance (sigma^2) of net-proton multiplicity (N_p - N_pbar) distributions at midrapidity for Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 19.6, 62.4, and 200 GeV corresponding to baryon chemical potentials (mu_B) between 200 - 20 MeV. Our measurements of the products kappa sigma^2 and S sigma, which can be related to theoretical calculations sensitive to baryon number susceptibilities and long range correlations, are constant as functions of collision centrality. We compare these products with results from lattice QCD and various models without a critical point and study the sqrt(s_NN) dependence of kappa sigma^2. From the measurements at the three beam energies, we find no evidence for a critical point in the QCD phase diagram for mu_B below 200 MeV.
We report the beam energy (sqrt s_{NN} = 7.7 - 200 GeV) and collision centrality dependence of the mean (M), standard deviation (sigma), skewness (S), and kurtosis (kappa) of the net-proton multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions. The measurements are carried out by the STAR experiment at midrapidity (|y| < 0.5) and within the transverse momentum range 0.4 < pT < 0.8 GeV/c in the first phase of the Beam Energy Scan program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. These measurements are important for understanding the Quantum Chromodynamic (QCD) phase diagram. The products of the moments, Ssigma and kappasigma^{2}, are sensitive to the correlation length of the hot and dense medium created in the collisions and are related to the ratios of baryon number susceptibilities of corresponding orders. The products of moments are found to have values significantly below the Skellam expectation and close to expectations based on independent proton and anti-proton production. The measurements are compared to a transport model calculation to understand the effect of acceptance and baryon number conservation, and also to a hadron resonance gas model.
Fluctuations of conserved quantities such as baryon number, charge, and strangeness are sensitive to the correlation length of the hot and dense matter created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and can be used to search for the QCD critical point. We report the first measurements of the moments of net-kaon multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{rm NN}}$ = 7.7, 11.5, 14.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4, and 200 GeV. The collision centrality and energy dependence of the mean ($M$), variance ($sigma^2$), skewness ($S$), and kurtosis ($kappa$) for net-kaon multiplicity distributions as well as the ratio $sigma^2/M$ and the products $Ssigma$ and $kappasigma^2$ are presented. Comparisons are made with Poisson and negative binomial baseline calculations as well as with UrQMD, a transport model (UrQMD) that does not include effects from the QCD critical point. Within current uncertainties, the net-kaon cumulant ratios appear to be monotonic as a function of collision energy.
A study of the first four moments (mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis) and their products ($kappasigma^{2}$ and $Ssigma$) of the net-charge and net-proton distributions in Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{rm s_{NN}}$ = 7.7-200 GeV from HIJING simulations has been carried out. The skewness and kurtosis and the collision volume independent products $kappasigma^{2}$ and $Ssigma$ have been proposed as sensitive probes for identifying the presence of a QCD critical point. A discrete probability distribution that effectively describes the separate positively and negatively charged particle (or proton and anti-proton) multiplicity distributions is the negative binomial (or binomial) distribution (NBD/BD). The NBD/BD has been used to characterize particle production in high-energy particle and nuclear physics. Their application to the higher moments of the net-charge and net-proton distributions is examined. Differences between $kappasigma^{2}$ and a statistical Poisson assumption of a factor of four (for net-charge) and 40% (for net-protons) can be accounted for by the NBD/BD. This is the first application of the properties of the NBD/BD to describe the behavior of the higher moments of net-charge and net-proton distributions in nucleus-nucleus collisions.
We report the energy and centrality dependence of dynamical kurtosis for Au + Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4 and 200 GeV at RHIC. The dynamical kurtosis of net-proton is compared to that of total-proton. The results are also compared with AMPT model calculations.
According to first principle Lattice QCD calculations, the transition from quark-gluon plasma to hadronic matter is a smooth crossover in the region $mu_{rm B}leq T_{c}$. As a result, higher-order cumulants and their ratios are predicted to be negative, $C_{6}/C_{2}<0$, for example. In this paper, we report the first measurement of the midrapidity net-proton $C_{6}/C_{2}$ from 27, 54.4 and 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC. The dependence on collision centrality and kinematic acceptance in ($p_{T}$, $y$) are analyzed. While for 27 and 54.4 GeV collisions the $C_{6}/C_{2}$ values are close to zero within uncertainties, it is observed that for 200 GeV collisions, the $C_{6}/C_{2}$ ratio becomes progressively negative from peripheral to central collisions. Transport model calculations without critical dynamics predict values around zero. These observations seem to favor a smooth crossover in the high energy nuclear collisions at RHIC.