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Abstract

Density fluctuations near the QCD critical point can be probed via an intermittency analysis in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We report the first measurement of intermittency in Au+Au collisions at √sNN = 7.7-200 GeV measured by the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The scaled factorial moments of identified charged hadrons are analyzed at mid-rapidity and within the transverse momentum phase space. We observe a power-law behavior of scaled factorial moments in Au+Au collisions and a decrease in the extracted scaling exponent (ν) from peripheral to central collisions. The ν is consistent with a constant for different collisions energies in the mid-central (10-40%) collisions. Moreover, the ν in the 0-5% most central Au+Au collisions exhibits a non-monotonic energy dependence that reaches a minimum around √sNN = 27 GeV. The physics implications on the QCD phase structure are discussed.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

Notes/Citation Information

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2023.138165

Funding Information

Funded by SCOAP.

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