arXiv · 2112.00240
Measurements of Proton High Order Cumulants in 3 GeV Au+Au Collisions and Implications for the QCD Critical Point
Abstract
We report cumulants of the proton multiplicity distribution from dedicated fixed-target Au+Au collisions at 3.0 GeV, measured by the STAR experiment in the kinematic acceptance of rapidity ($y$) and transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) within $-0.5 < y<0$ and $0.4 < p_{\rm T} <2.0 $ GeV/$c$. In the most central 0--5\% collisions, a proton cumulant ratio is measured to be $C_4/C_2=-0.85 \pm 0.09 ~(\rm stat.) \pm 0.82 ~(\rm syst.)$, which is less than unity, the Poisson baseline. The hadronic transport UrQMD model reproduces our $C_4/C_2$ in the measured acceptance. Compared to higher energy results and the transport model calculations, the suppression in $C_4/C_2$ is consistent with fluctuations driven by baryon number conservation and indicates an energy regime dominated by hadronic interactions. These data imply that the QCD critical region, if created in heavy-ion collisions, could only exist at energies higher than 3\,GeV.
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STAR Collaboration, M. S. Abdallah, B. E. Aboona, J. Adam, L. Adamczyk, J. R. Adams, J. K. Adkins, G. Agakishiev, I. Aggarwal, M. M. Aggarwal, Z. Ahammed, I. Alekseev, D. M. Anderson, A. Aparin, E. C. Aschenauer, M. U. Ashraf, F. G. Atetalla, A. Attri, G. S. Averichev, V. Bairathi, W. Baker, J. G. Ball Cap, K. Barish, A. Behera, R. Bellwied, P. Bhagat, A. Bhasin, J. Bielcik, J. Bielcikova, I. G. Bordyuzhin, J. D. Brandenburg, A. V. Brandin, I. Bunzarov, X. Z. Cai, H. Caines, M. Calderón de la Barca Sánchez, D. Cebra, I. Chakaberia, P. Chaloupka, B. K. Chan, F-H. Chang, Z. Chang, N. Chankova-Bunzarova, A. Chatterjee, S. Chattopadhyay, D. Chen, J. Chen, J. H. Chen, X. Chen, Z. Chen, J. Cheng, M. Chevalier, S. Choudhury, W. Christie, X. Chu, H. J. Crawford, M. Csanád, M. Daugherity, T. G. Dedovich, I. M. Deppner, A. A. Derevschikov, A. Dhamija, L. Di Carlo, L. Didenko, P. Dixit, X. Dong, J. L. Drachenberg, E. Duckworth, J. C. Dunlop, N. Elsey, J. Engelage, G. Eppley, S. Esumi, O. Evdokimov, A. Ewigleben, O. Eyser, R. Fatemi, F. M. Fawzi, S. Fazio, P. Federic, J. Fedorisin, C. J. Feng, Y. Feng, P. Filip, E. Finch, Y. Fisyak, A. Francisco, C. Fu, L. Fulek, C. A. Gagliardi, T. Galatyuk, F. Geurts, N. Ghimire, A. Gibson, K. Gopal, X. Gou, D. Grosnick, A. Gupta, W. Guryn, A. I. Hamad. 2021-12-01. Measurements of Proton High Order Cumulants in 3 GeV Au+Au Collisions and Implications for the QCD Critical Point. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.128.202303
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