Net-Baryon Physics: Basic Mechanisms

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple, consistent model for net-baryon production in high-energy collisions, capturing key features of experimental data and elucidating fundamental mechanisms.

Contribution

It presents a novel, minimalistic model based on valence string formation and QCD evolution that effectively describes net-baryon production across various collision types.

Findings

Model reproduces main features of net-baryon data

Good agreement with experimental results

Highlights fundamental production mechanisms

Abstract

It is well known that, in nuclear collisions, a sizable fraction of the available energy is carried away by baryons. As the baryon number is conserved, the net-baryon $B-\bar{B}$ retains information on the energy-momentum carried by the incoming nuclei. A simple but consistent model for net-baryon production in high energy hadron-hadron, hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions is presented. The basic ingredients of the model are valence string formation based on standard PDFs with QCD evolution and string fragmentation via the Schwinger mechanism. The results of the model are presented and compared with both data and existing models. These results show that a good description of the main features of net-baryon data is possible on the framework of a simplistic model, with the advantage of making the fundamental production mechanisms manifest.