Directed Flow of Charged Kaons in Au+Au Collisions from the BES Program at RHIC

TL;DR

This paper presents measurements of the directed flow ($v_{1}$) of charged kaons in gold-gold collisions across a range of energies, providing insights into medium properties and collision dynamics in heavy-ion physics.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed $v_{1}$ measurements for charged kaons at multiple energies, comparing them with other particles to inform models of the quark-gluon plasma.

Findings

Kaon directed flow varies with collision energy and rapidity.

Results help constrain in-medium kaon potential and baryon transport.

Data improve understanding of collision dynamics in heavy-ion experiments.

Abstract

We report the measurement of the directed flow ($v_{1}$) for charged kaons in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ =7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4 and 200 GeV as a function of rapidity and compare these results for pions, protons and antiprotons. These new kaon results may help to constrain the medium properties and collision dynamics including the in-medium kaon potential and baryon number transport in these collisions.