We study the influence of the centrality definition and detector efficiency on the net-proton kurtosis for minimum bias Au+Au collisions at a beam energy of $sqrt{s_{mathrm{NN}}}= 7.7$ GeV by using the UrQMD model. We find that different ways of defining the centrality lead to different cumulant ratios. Moreover, we demonstrate that the kurtosis is suppressed for central collisions when a wider transverse momentum acceptance is used. Finally, the influence of a detector efficiency on the measured cumulant ratios is estimated.
We study the dependence of the normalized moments of the net-proton multiplicity distributions on the definition of centrality in relativistic nuclear collisions at a beam energy of $sqrt{s_{mathrm{NN}}}= 7.7$ GeV. Using the UrQMD model as event generator we find that the centrality definition has a large effect on the extracted cumulant ratios. Furthermore we find that the finite efficiency for the determination of the centrality introduces an additional systematic uncertainty. Finally, we quantitatively investigate the effects of event-pile up and other possible spurious effects which may change the measured proton number. We find that pile-up alone is not sufficient to describe the data and show that a random double counting of events, adding significantly to the measured proton number, affects mainly the higher order cumulants in most central 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.
The recent results on net-proton and net-charge multiplicity fluctuations from the beam energy scan program at RHIC have drawn much attention to explore the critical point in the QCD phase diagram. Experimentally measured protons contain contribution from various processes such as secondaries from higher mass resonance decay, production process, and protons from the baryon stopping. Further, these contributions also fluctuate from event to event and can contaminate the dynamical fluctuations due to the critical point. We present the contribution of stopped proton and produced proton fluctuations in the net-proton multiplicity fluctuation in auau collisions measured by STAR experiment at RHIC. The produced net-proton multiplicity fluctuations using cumulants and their ratios are studied as a function collision energies. After removing the stopped proton contribution from the inclusive proton multiplicity distribution, a non-monotonic behavior is even more pronounced in the net-proton fluctuations around sqsn = 19.6 GeV, both in $Ssigma$ and $kappasigma^2$. The present study will be useful to understand the fluctuations originating due to critical point.
The non-monotonic beam energy dependence of the higher cumulants of net-proton fluctuations is a widely studied signature of the conjectured presence of a critical point in the QCD phase diagram. In this work we study the effect of resonance decays on critical fluctuations. We show that resonance effects reduce the signatures of critical fluctuations, but that for reasonable parameter choices critical effects in the net-proton cumulants survive. The relative role of resonance decays has a weak dependence on the order of the cumulants studied with a slightly stronger suppression of critical effects for higher-order cumulants.
Event-by-event fluctuations of the net-proton number studied in heavy-ion collisions provide an important means in the search for the conjectured critical end point (CP) in the QCD phase diagram. We propose a phenomenological model in which the fluctuations of the chiral critical mode couple to protons and anti-protons. This allows us to study the behavior of the net-proton number fluctuations in the presence of the CP. Calculating the net-proton number cumulants, $C_n$ with n=1,2,3,4, along the phenomenological freeze-out line we show that the ratio of variance and mean $C_2/C_1$, as well as kurtosis $C_4/C_2$ resemble qualitative properties observed in data in heavy-ion collisions as a function of beam energy obtained by the STAR Collaboration at RHIC. In particular, the non-monotonic structure of the kurtosis and smooth change of the $C_2/C_1$ ratio with beam energy could be due to the CP located near the freeze-out line. The skewness, however, exhibits properties that are in contrast to the criticality expected due to the CP. The dependence of our results on the model parameters and the proximity of the chemical freeze-out to the critical point are also discussed.