Beam-Energy Dependence of Directed Flow of Protons, Antiprotons and Pions in Au+Au Collisions
nucl-ex
/ Authors
STAR Collaboration, L. Adamczyk, J. K. Adkins, G. Agakishiev, M. M. Aggarwal, Z. Ahammed, I. Alekseev, J. Alford, C. D. Anson, A. Aparin
and 347 more authors
D. Arkhipkin, E. C. Aschenauer, G. S. Averichev, A. Banerjee, D. R. Beavis, R. Bellwied, A. Bhasin, A. K. Bhati, P. Bhattarai, H. Bichsel, J. Bielcik, J. Bielcikova, L. C. Bland, I. G. Bordyuzhin, W. Borowski, J. Bouchet, A. V. Brandin, S. G. Brovko, S. Bültmann, I. Bunzarov, T. P. Burton, J. Butterworth, H. Caines,
/ Abstract
Rapidity-odd directed flow($v_1$) measurements for charged pions, protons and antiprotons near mid-rapidity ($y=0$) are reported in $\sqrt{s_{NN}} =$ 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4 and 200 GeV Au + Au collisions as recorded by the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). At intermediate impact parameters, the proton and net-proton slope parameter $dv_1/dy|_{y=0}$ shows a minimum between 11.5 and 19.6 GeV. In addition, the net-proton $dv_1/dy|_{y=0}$ changes sign twice between 7.7 and 39 GeV. The proton and net-proton results qualitatively resemble predictions of a hydrodynamic model with a first-order phase transition from hadronic matter to deconfined matter, and differ from hadronic transport calculations.