Abstract
We study clustering of baryons at the freeze-out point of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Using a Walecka-Serot model for the nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction we analyze how the modified/critical $\sigma$ mode---responsible for the NN attraction---allows for clustering of nucleons when the system is close to a possible critical point of QCD. We investigate clusters of few nucleons, and also the internal cluster configuration when the system is long lived. For realistic heavy-ion collisions we study to how extend such clusters can be formed in a finite time, and perform the statistical analysis of cumulants and higher-order moments (skewness and kurtosis) for collisions at the Beam Energy Scan of RHIC.
Highlights
We start by contrasting known facts about high- and lowenergy heavy-ion collisions, after which we will define the phenomena to be discussed in this work
To get some intuition on how these potentials affect the structure of nuclear matter, we present preliminary studies of how such modifications change the binding of clusters in Sec
We apply our model to heavy-ion collisions at the beam energy scan (BES) conditions
Summary
We start by contrasting known facts about high- and lowenergy heavy-ion collisions, after which we will define the phenomena to be discussed in this work. A small modification of the internucleon potential can induce quite significant changes in binding, even up to an order of magnitude This is of crucial importance, because the temperatures of the hadronic phase we discuss range from the critical temperature Tc ≈ 120–155 MeV down to the kinetic freeze-out temperature of baryons Tkin ≈ 80–100 MeV. On general theoretical grounds we know that second-order phase transitions have massless modes, which lead to the phenomenon of critical opalescence at scales much larger than the microscopic scales of matter If exchanges of such long-range critical modes do appear in the internucleon potential—even with relatively small coupling—we will find a significant enhancement of both the binding of certain nuclear clusters, and the kinetic clustering rates. As multiple studies on the kinetics near the phase transitions indicate, the so-called “critical slowing down” phenomenon prevents complete equilibration, and opens the door to multiple out-of-equilibrium scenarios, some with significant cluster production
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