Understanding the Effect of Conserved Charges on the Coalescence Sum Rule of Directed Flow

Abstract

Recently, the rapidity-odd directed flow (v1) of produced hadrons (K−, ϕ, p¯, Λ¯, Ξ¯+, Ω−, and Ω¯+) has been studied. Several combinations of these produced hadrons, with very small mass differences but differences in the net electric charge (Δq) and net strangeness (ΔS) on the two sides, have been considered. A difference in v1 between the two sides of these combinations (Δv1) has been proposed as a consequence of the electromagnetic field produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, especially if Δv1 increases with Δq. Our study is performed to understand the effect of the coalescence sum rule (CSR) on Δv1. We point out that the CSR leads to Δv1=cqΔq+cSΔS, where the coefficients cq and cS reflect the Δv1 of produced quarks. Equivalently, one can write Δv1=cqΔq+cBΔB, involving the difference in the net baryon number ΔB, where the CSR gives cB=−3cS. We then propose two methods to extract the coefficients for the Δq and ΔS dependences of Δv1.

Keywords

• directed flow
• coalescence sum rule