Abstract

The first phase of the Beam Energy Scan (BES-I) program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is based on Au+Au collision data collected between 2010 and 2014 at center-of-mass energies sNN = 7.7, 11.5, 14.5, 19.6, 27, and 39 GeV. The BES-I program has four physics goals: search for the turning off of the signatures of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), the search for the possible first-order phase transition between hadronic gas and QGP, the search for the possible critical end point and the study of the transport properties of the strongly interacting matter as a function of the temperature T and baryon chemical potential μB . In this article, we briefly review and discuss the main results and their understanding from the BES-I program and future plans for the BES-II program (2019-2020).

Highlights

  • The first decade of RHIC running (2000-2010) at top energy of √ sNN =200GeV has established the existence of a strongly coupled Quark Gluon Plasma, a new state of nuclear matter with partonic degrees of freedom [1, 2] and with low specific shear viscosity η/s, i.e. the ratio of shear viscosity η to entropy density s [3, 4]

  • We briefly review and discuss the main results and their understanding from the BES-I program and future plans for the BES-II

  • The possible region of a first order phase transition is expected at larger values of μB, suggesting the existence of a critical end point (CEP) [6]

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Summary

Introduction

GeV has established the existence of a strongly coupled Quark Gluon Plasma (sQGP), a new state of nuclear matter with partonic degrees of freedom [1, 2] and with low specific shear viscosity η/s, i.e. the ratio of shear viscosity η to entropy density s [3, 4]. The possible region of a first order phase transition is expected at larger values of μB (lower beam energies), suggesting the existence of a critical end point (CEP) [6]. The RHIC BES-I program (2010-2014) has four physics goals [7,8,9]: search for the turning off of the signatures of the QGP well established at top RHIC energies, the search for the possible first-order phase transition between hadronic gas and QGP and for critical end√point, and the study of the transport properties of the strongly interacting matter: e.g η/s(T, μB). /dη, for Au+Au The right panel collisions of Fig. 1 shows estimates of the initial energy density times the formation time of a QGP τ0 for various Au-Au collision centralities.

Search for the turning off of the signatures of the QGP
Search for the first-order phase transition
Npart d
Search for the QCD critical end point
Plans for RHIC Beam Energy Scan Phase-II
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