Beam-energy dependence of the production of light nuclei in Au + Au collisions

Abstract

We study the collision energy dependence of (anti-)deuteron and (anti-)triton production in the most central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=$ 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4 and 200 GeV, using the nucleon coalescence model. The needed phase-space distribution of nucleons at the kinetic freeze-out is generated from a new 3D hybrid dynamical model (\texttt{iEBE-MUSIC}) by using a smooth crossover equation of state (EoS) without a QCD critical point. Our model calculations predict that the coalescence parameters of (anti-)deuteron ($B_2(d)$ and $B_2(\bar{d})$) decrease monotonically as the collision energy increases, and the light nuclei yield ratio $N_t N_p/N_d^2$ remains approximately a constant with respect to the collision energy. These calculated observables fail to reproduce the non-monotonic behavior of the corresponding data from the STAR Collaboration. Without including any effects of the critical point in our model, our results serve as the baseline predictions for the yields of light nuclei in the search for the possible QCD critical points from the experimental beam energy scan of heavy ion collisions.