Energy Dependence of Moments of Net-Proton Multiplicity Distributions at RHIC

Adamczyk, L. and Adkins, J. K. and Agakishiev, G. and Aggarwal, M. M. and Ahammed, Z. and Alekseev, I. and Alford, J. and Anson, C. D. and Aparin, A. and Arkhipkin, D. and Aschenauer, E. C. and Averichev, G. S. and Balewski, J. and Banerjee, A. and Bamovska, Z. and Beavis, D. R. and Bellwied, R. and Bhasin, A. and Bhati, A. K. and Bhattarai, P. and Bichsel, H. and Bielcik, J. and Bielcikova, J. and Bland, L. C. and Bordyuzhin, I. G. and Borowski, W. and Bouchet, J. and Brandin, A. V. and Brovko, S. G. and Bultmann, S. and Vértesi, Róbert (2014) Energy Dependence of Moments of Net-Proton Multiplicity Distributions at RHIC. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS, 112 (3). ISSN 0031-9007

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Abstract

We report the beam energy (√sNN = 7.7 - 200 GeV) and collision centrality dependence of the mean (M ), standard deviation (σ), skewness (S), and kurtosis (κ) of the net-proton multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions. The measurements are carried out by the STAR experiment at midrapidity (|y| < 0.5) and within the transverse momentum range 0.4 < pT < 0.8 GeV/c in the first phase of the Beam Energy Scan program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. These mea- surements are important for understanding the Quantum Chromodynamic (QCD) The products of the moments, Sσ and κσ2, are sensitive to the correlation length of the hot and dense medium created in the collisions and are related to the ratios of baryon number susceptibili- ties of corresponding orders. The products of moments are found to have values significantly below the Skellam expectation and close to expectations based on independent proton and anti-proton production. The measurements are compared to a transport model calculation to understand the effect of acceptance and baryon number conservation, and also to a hadron resonance gas model.

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