Measurement of higher cumulants of net-charge multiplicity distributions in Au +Au collisions at √{sN N}=7.7 -200 GeV
Abstract
We report the measurement of cumulants (Cn,n =1 ,...,4 ) of the net-charge distributions measured within pseudorapidity (|η |<0.35 ) in Au +Au collisions at √{sNN}=7.7 -200 GeV with the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The ratios of cumulants (e.g., C1/C2 , C3/C1 ) of the net-charge distributions, which can be related to volume independent susceptibility ratios, are studied as a function of centrality and energy. These quantities are important to understand the quantum-chromodynamics phase diagram and possible existence of a critical end point. The measured values are very well described by expectation from negative binomial distributions. We do not observe any nonmonotonic behavior in the ratios of the cumulants as a function of collision energy. The measured values of C1/C2 and C3/C1 can be directly compared to lattice quantum-chromodynamics calculations and thus allow extraction of both the chemical freeze-out temperature and the baryon chemical potential at each center-of-mass energy. The extracted baryon chemical potentials are in excellent agreement with a thermal-statistical analysis model.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review C
- Pub Date:
- January 2016
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevC.93.011901
- Bibcode:
- 2016PhRvC..93a1901A