Rapidity equilibration and longitudinal expansion at RHIC

Abstract

The evolution of net-proton rapidity spectra with sqrt(s_NN) in heavy relativistic systems is proposed as an indicator for local equilibration and longitudinal expansion. In a Relativistic Diffusion Model, bell-shaped distributions in central collisions at AGS energies and double-humped nonequilibrium spectra at SPS show pronounced longitudinal collective expansion when compared to the available data. The broad midrapidity valley recently discovered at RHIC in central Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV indicates rapid local equilibration which is most likely due to deconfinement, and fast longitudinal expansion of the locally equilibrated subsystem. A prediction is made for Au+Au at sqrt(s_NN)= 62.4 GeV.

11 pages, 1 table, 2 figures; changes/additions in text, table, figs

References in corpus (2)

• Femtoscopy in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions: Two Decades of Progress
• Local Thermalization in the d + Au System

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Baryon Stopping as a new Probe of Geometric Scaling
• Baryon stopping and saturation physics in relativistic collisions
• Centrality dependence of charged-hadron pseudorapidity distributions in PbPb collisions at LHC energies in the RDM
• Stopping in central Pb + Pb collisions at SPS energies and beyond
• From RHIC to LHC: A relativistic diffusion approach
• Hadron production in heavy relativistic systems
• Diffusion or bounce back in relativistic heavy-ion collisions?
• Limiting fragmentation at LHC energies
• Suppression of High Transverse Momentum ${\pi }^0$ Spectra in Au+Au Collisions at RHIC
• Particle production and nonlinear diffusion in relativistic systems
• Elliptical Flow in Relativistic Ion Collisions at s^(1/2)= 200 A GeV
• Rapidity equilibration in d + Au and Au + Au systems