Production correlation of light (hyper-)nuclei in Au-Au collisions from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan

TL;DR

This paper models the production of light nuclei and hypernuclei in heavy-ion collisions using a coalescence approach, explaining experimental data and predicting yields of hypernuclei across different energies.

Contribution

It introduces analytical formulas for two- and three-body coalescence and systematically compares model predictions with experimental data from RHIC Beam Energy Scan.

Findings

Successfully reproduces transverse momentum spectra of light nuclei.

Provides predictions for hypernuclei production at various energies.

Analyzes production correlations as a function of collision energy.

Abstract

Based on nucleons ($p$, $n$) and hyperons ($\Lambda$, $\Omega^-$) formed at kinetic freeze-out from a quark combination model, we systematically study the production of light nuclei and hyper-nuclei in the hadronic coalescence picture. We present the analytical formula of the nucleus momentum distribution of two-body coalescence and that of three-body coalescence. We explain the experimental data of the transverse momentum spectra of deuteron ($d$), triton ($t$), helium-3 ($^3$He) and hypertriton ($^3_{\Lambda}$H) measured in Au-Au collisions from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan I and II, and also provide the corresponding predictions of different $\Omega-$hypernuclei $H(p\Omega^-)$, $H(n\Omega^-)$ and $H(pn\Omega^-)$. We further study the production correlations of different species of light (hyper-)nuclei and discuss their interesting behaviors as a function of collision energy.