Hadron production and freeze-out dynamics in Au+Au at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 19.6 GeV

ORAL

Abstract

The Beam Energy Scan program at RHIC was commissioned to search for the critical point and the turn-off of QGP signatures. The program completed collisions of Au+Au at energies ranging from 7.7 to 62.4 GeV per nucleon pair in the years 2010 and 2011. The addition of a full-coverage Time-of-Flight detector at STAR has extended the momentum range for clean particle identification. Mid-rapidity hadron spectra will be used to determine the freeze-out dynamics of the system. We will present particle spectra for $\pi$, K, p and $\bar{p}$ as a function of $m_{T}-m_{0}$ and use this to discuss particle ratios, in particular the source's Coulombic effect on soft pions, as well as chemical and kinetic freeze-out properties at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 19.6 GeV Au+Au. We will also compare results to $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 7.7 GeV, 11.5 GeV, 19.6 GeV (from 2001), 27 GeV, 39 GeV Au+Au data from STAR, and $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 17.3 GeV Pb+Pb data from the SPS heavy ion program.

Authors

  • Samantha Brovko

    University of California, Davis