Measurement of Intermittency for Charged Particles in Au + Au Collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 7.7-200 GeV from STAR

TL;DR

This study measures fluctuations in charged particle densities in gold-gold collisions at various energies to explore signs of the QCD critical point, revealing energy-dependent scaling behaviors.

Contribution

First measurement of intermittency for charged particles in Au+Au collisions across a wide energy range at RHIC, showing non-monotonic energy dependence of the scaling exponent.

Findings

Scaling behavior observed in central collisions.

Scaling exponent decreases from mid-central to central collisions.

Non-monotonic energy dependence with a minimum around 20-30 GeV.

Abstract

Local density fluctuations near the QCD critical point can be probed by intermittency analysis of scaled factorial moments in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We report the first measurement of intermittency for charged particles in Au + Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 7.7-200 GeV from the STAR experiment at RHIC. We observe scaling behaviors in central Au + Au collisions, with the extracted scaling exponent decreasing from mid-central to the most central Au + Au collisions. Furthermore, the scaling exponent exhibits a non-monotonic energy dependence with a minimum around $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 20-30 GeV in central Au + Au collisions.