European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields (Apr 2017)

Impact of resonance decays on critical point signals in net-proton fluctuations

  • Marcus Bluhm,
  • Marlene Nahrgang,
  • Steffen A. Bass,
  • Thomas Schäfer

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-4771-3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 77, no. 4
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Abstract The non-monotonic beam energy dependence of the higher cumulants of net-proton fluctuations is a widely studied signature of the conjectured presence of a critical point in the QCD phase diagram. In this work we study the effect of resonance decays on critical fluctuations. We show that resonance effects reduce the signatures of critical fluctuations, but that for reasonable parameter choices critical effects in the net-proton cumulants survive. The relative role of resonance decays has a weak dependence on the order of the cumulants studied with a slightly stronger suppression of critical effects for higher-order cumulants.

Keywords