Pair invariant mass to isolate background in the search for the chiral magnetic effect in Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{_{rm NN}}}$= 200 GeV


Abstract in English

Quark interactions with topological gluon configurations can induce local chirality imbalance and parity violation in quantum chromodynamics, which can lead to the chiral magnetic effect (CME) -- an electric charge separation along the strong magnetic field in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The CME-sensitive azimuthal correlator observable ($Deltagamma$) is contaminated by background arising, in part, from resonance decays coupled with elliptic anisotropy ($v_{2}$). We report here the first differential measurements of the correlator as a function of the pair invariant mass ($m_{rm inv}$) in 20-50% centrality Au+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{_{rm NN}}}$= 200 GeV by the STAR experiment at RHIC. Strong resonance background contributions to $Deltagamma$ are observed. At large $m_{rm inv}$ where this background is significantly reduced, the $Deltagamma$ value is found to be also significantly smaller. An event shape engineering technique is deployed to determine the $v_{2}$ background shape as a function of $m_{rm inv}$. A $v_{2}$-independent signal, possibly indicating a $m_{rm inv}$-integrated CME contribution, is extracted to be $Deltagamma_{rm signal}$ = (0.03 $pm$ 0.06 $pm$ 0.08) $times10^{-4}$, or $(2pm4pm5)%$ of the inclusive $Deltagamma(m_{rm inv}>0.4$ GeV/$c^2$)$=(1.58 pm 0.02 pm 0.02) times10^{-4}$. This presents an upper limit of $0.23times10^{-4}$, or $15%$ of the inclusive result at $95%$ confidence level.

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