Search for the chiral magnetic effect in Au+Au collisions at sNN=27 GeV with the STAR forward event plane detectors

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7 Scopus citations

Abstract

A decisive experimental test of the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) is considered one of the major scientific goals at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) towards understanding the nontrivial topological fluctuations of the Quantum Chromodynamics vacuum. In heavy-ion collisions, the CME is expected to result in a charge separation phenomenon across the reaction plane, whose strength could be strongly energy dependent. The previous CME searches have been focused on top RHIC energy collisions. In this Letter, we present a low energy search for the CME in Au+Au collisions at sNN=27 GeV. We measure elliptic flow scaled charge-dependent correlators relative to the event planes that are defined at both mid-rapidity |η|<1.0 and at forward rapidity 2.1<|η|<5.1. We compare the results based on the directed flow plane (Ψ1) at forward rapidity and the elliptic flow plane (Ψ2) at both central and forward rapidity. The CME scenario is expected to result in a larger correlation relative to Ψ1 than to Ψ2, while a flow driven background scenario would lead to a consistent result for both event planes. In 10-50% centrality, results using three different event planes are found to be consistent within experimental uncertainties, suggesting a flow driven background scenario dominating the measurement. We obtain an upper limit on the deviation from a flow driven background scenario at the 95% confidence level. This work opens up a possible road map towards future CME search with the high statistics data from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan Phase-II.

Original languageEnglish
Article number137779
JournalPhysics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
Volume839
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 10 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023

Funding

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 f\u00FCr Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF), Helmholtz Association, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

FundersFunder number
Hungarian Ministry of Human Capacities
National Research Foundation of Korea
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association
Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China
Narodowe Centrum Nauki
Grantová Agentura České Republiky
National Science Foundation Arctic Social Science Program
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
Nemzeti Kutatási Fejlesztési és Innovációs Hivatal
Ministry of Education at NCKU
Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Science and Technology
Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie
WUT ID-UB of Poland
Ministarstvo Obrazovanja, Znanosti i Sporta
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Office of Science Programs
Riley Children's Foundation
Institute for Nuclear Physics
Ministerstvo Školství, Mládeže a Tělovýchovy
RHIC Operations Group
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science19H05598
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

    Keywords

    • Beam energy scan
    • Chiral magnetic effect
    • Heavy-ion collisions

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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