Particle spectra in the integrated hydrokinetic model at RHIC Beam-Energy-Scan energies

TL;DR

This study uses an extended integrated hydrokinetic model to analyze light-hadron production in Au+Au collisions across a range of energies, focusing on spectra sensitivity to model parameters and equations of state.

Contribution

It introduces an extended hydrokinetic model with analysis of different equations of state and their impact on particle spectra at various collision energies.

Findings

Both equations of state fit the spectra well with slight parameter adjustments.

Significant differences at 7.7 GeV in proton and kaon yields.

Thermalization occurs shortly before full nuclear overlap across energies.

Abstract

We study light-hadron production in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 7.7-39$ GeV using an extended Integrated HydroKinetic Model (iHKMe). Focusing on transverse momentum spectra, we investigate the sensitivity to key model parameters, particularly the thermalization timescale. We consider two distinct equations of state: one featuring a crossover and the other a first-order phase transition. In both cases, thermalization begins shortly before full nuclear overlap and lasts approximately 1~fm/$c$ across all energies. Both equations of state provide a similarly good description of the soft particle momentum spectra once the other parameters are slightly adjusted. The most pronounced differences arise at the lower RHIC BES energy of $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 7.7$~GeV, particularly in proton and kaon yields, reflecting their sensitivity to the freeze-out parameters.