Abstract
We report the beam energy and collision centrality dependence of fifth and sixth order cumulants (C5, C6) and factorial cumulants (κ5, κ6) of net-proton and proton number distributions, from center-of-mass energy (sNN) 3 GeV to 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC. Cumulant ratios of net-proton (taken as proxy for net-baryon) distributions generally follow the hierarchy expected from QCD thermodynamics, except for the case of collisions at 3 GeV. The measured values of C6/C2 for 0%-40% centrality collisions show progressively negative trend with decreasing energy, while it is positive for the lowest energy studied. These observed negative signs are consistent with QCD calculations (for baryon chemical potential, μB≤110 MeV) which contains the crossover transition range. In addition, for energies above 7.7 GeV, the measured proton κn, within uncertainties, does not support the two-component (Poisson+binomial) shape of proton number distributions that would be expected from a first-order phase transition. Taken in combination, the hyperorder proton number fluctuations suggest that the structure of QCD matter at high baryon density, μB∼750 MeV at sNN=3 GeV is starkly different from those at vanishing μB∼24 MeV at sNN=200 GeV and higher collision energies.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 082301 |
Journal | Physical Review Letters |
Volume | 130 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 24 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank the RHIC Operations Group and RCF at BNL, the NERSC Center at LBNL, and the Open Science Grid consortium for providing resources and support. This work was supported in part by the Office of Nuclear Physics within the U.S. DOE Office of Science, the U.S. National Science Foundation, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Chinese Academy of Science, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and the Chinese Ministry of Education, the Higher Education Sprout Project by Ministry of Education at NCKU, the National Research Foundation of Korea, Czech Science Foundation and Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office, New National Excellency Programme of the Hungarian Ministry of Human Capacities, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, the National Science Centre and WUT ID-UB of Poland, the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia, German Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung and Technologie (BMBF), Helmholtz Association, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 American Physical Society.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Physics and Astronomy (all)