PHENIX results on fluctuations and Bose–Einstein correlations in Au + Au collisions from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan

Abstract

The RHIC Beam Energy Scan focuses on mapping the QCD phase diagram and pinpointing the location of a possible critical end point. Bose-Einstein correlations and event-by-event fluctuations of conserved quantities, measured as a function of centrality and collision energy, are promising tools in these studies. Recent lattice QCD and statistical thermal model calculations predict that higher-order cumulants of the fluctuations are sensitive indicators of the phase transition. Products of these cumulants can be used to extract the freeze-out parameters [A. Bazavov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 192302 (2012)] and to locate the critical point [M. A. Stephanov, K. Rajagopal and E. V. Shuryak, Phys. Rev. D 60, 114028 (1999)]. Two-pion interferometry measurements are predicted to be sensitive to potential softening of the equation of state and prolonged emission duration close to the critical point [S. Pratt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 53, 1219 (1984)]. We present recent PHENIX results on fluctuations of net-charge using high-order cumulants and their products in Au+Au collisions at sNN=7.7–200 GeV, and measurement of two-pion correlation functions and emission-source radii in Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at several beam energies. The extracted source radii are compared to previous measurements at RHIC and LHC in order to study energy dependence of the specific quantities sensitive to expansion velocity and emission duration. Implications for the search of a critical point and baryon chemical potentials at various collision energies are discussed.