- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review C

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Understanding baryon stopping at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider top energies

Niseem Magdy1,2,*, Prithwish Tribedy2, Chun Yuen Tsang2,3, and Zhangbu Xu2,3

  • *Contact author: niseem.abdelrahman@tsu.edu
PDF

Phys. Rev. C 112, 054904 – Published 17 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ghb2-4y3s

Abstract

The nucleon exhibits a rich internal structure governed by quantum chromodynamics (QCD), where its electric charge arises from valence quarks, while its spin and mass emerge from complex interactions among valence quarks, sea (anti)quarks, and gluons. At the advent of QCD, an alternative hypothesis emerged suggesting, at high energies, the transport of a nucleon's baryon number could be traced by a nonperturbative configuration of gluon fields connecting its three valence quarks, forming a Y-shaped topology known as the gluon junction. Recent measurements by the STAR experiment are compatible with this scenario. In light of these measurements, this study aims to explore the mechanisms of baryon transport in high-energy nuclear collisions using the pythia-8 framework, which incorporates a state-of-the-art hadronization model with advanced color flow (CF) and color reconnection (CR) mechanisms that mimic signatures of a baryon junction. Within this model setup, we investigate (i) the rapidity slope of the net-baryon distributions in photon-included processes (γ+p) and (ii) baryon over charge transport in the isobaric (Ru+Ru and Zr+Zr) collisions. Our study highlights the importance of the CF and CR mechanisms in pythia-8, which play a crucial role in baryon transport. The results show that the CF and CR schemes significantly affect the isobaric baryon-to-charge ratio, leading to different predictions for baryon stopping and underscoring the need to account for CF and CR effects in comparisons with experimental measurements.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (32)

  1. X. Artru, Nucl. Phys. B 85, 442 (1975).
  2. G. C. Rossi and G. Veneziano, Nucl. Phys. B 123, 507 (1977).
  3. D. Kharzeev, Phys. Lett. B 378, 238 (1996).
  4. H. Suganuma, T. T. Takahashi, F. Okiharu, and H. Ichie, AIP Conf. Proc. 756, 123 (2005).
  5. T. T. Takahashi, H. Matsufuru, Y. Nemoto, and H. Suganuma, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 18 (2001).
  6. F. Bissey, F.-G. Cao, A. R. Kitson, A. I. Signal, D. B. Leinweber, B. G. Lasscock, and A. G. Williams, Phys. Rev. D 76, 114512 (2007).
  7. C. E. Coleman-Smith and B. Müller, Phys. Rev. D 89, 025019 (2014).
  8. H. Mäntysaari and B. Schenke, Phys. Rev. D 94, 034042 (2016).
  9. W. Xiang, Y. Cai, M. Wang, and D. Zhou, Commun. Theor. Phys. 77, 075302 (2025).
  10. N. Lewis, W. Lv, M. A. Ross, C. Y. Tsang, J. D. Brandenburg, Z.-W. Lin, R. Ma, Z. Tang, P. Tribedy, and Z. Xu, Eur. Phys. J. C 84, 590 (2024).
  11. D. Frenklakh, D. E. Kharzeev, and W. Li, Phys. Lett. B 853, 138680 (2024).
  12. W. Lv, Y. Li, Z. Li, R. Ma, Z. Tang, P. Tribedy, C. Y. Tsang, Z. Xu, and W. Zha, Chin. Phys. C 48, 044001 (2024).
  13. D. Frenklakh, D. Kharzeev, G. Rossi, and G. Veneziano, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2024) 262.
  14. Star Collaboration, arXiv:2408.15441.
  15. N. Magdy, A. Deshpande, R. Lacey, W. Li, P. Tribedy, and Z. Xu, Eur. Phys. J. C 84, 1326 (2024).
  16. C. Y. Tsang, R. Ma, P. Tribedy, and Z. Xu, Phys. Lett. B 860, 139205 (2025).
  17. M. Gyulassy, V. Topor Pop, and S. E. Vance, Acta Phys. Hung. A 5, 299 (1997).
  18. H. Appelshäuser et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 2471 (1999).
  19. I. C. Arsene, I.G. Bearden, D. Beavis, S. Bekele, C. Besliu, B. Budick, H. Bøggild, C. Chasman, C.H. Christensen, P. Christiansen, H.H. Dalsgaard, R. Debbe, J.J. Gaardhøje, K. Hagel, H. Ito, A. Jipa i, E.B. Johnson, C.E. Jørgensen, R. Karabowicz, N. Katrynska et al., Phys. Lett. B 677, 267 (2009).
  20. B. I. Abelev et al., Phys. Rev. C 79, 034909 (2009).
  21. L. Adamczyk et al., Phys. Rev. C 96, 044904 (2017).
  22. K. Aamodt et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 072002 (2010).
  23. R. A. Lacey, arXiv:2410.22688.
  24. L. Lönnblad and H. Shah, Eur. Phys. J. C 83, 575 (2023); 83, 639 (2023).
  25. C. Bierlich, G. Gustafson, L. Lönnblad, and H. Shah, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2018) 134.
  26. T. Sjöstrand, S. Ask, J. R. Christiansen, R. Corke, N. Desai, P. Ilten, S. Mrenna, S. Prestel, C. O. Rasmussen, and P. Z. Skands, Comput. Phys. Commun. 191, 159 (2015).
  27. R. J. Glauber, Phys. Rev. 100, 242 (1955).
  28. M. Rybczynski, G. Stefanek, W. Broniowski, and P. Bozek, Comput. Phys. Commun. 185, 1759 (2014).
  29. T. Sjostrand and P. Z. Skands, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2004) 053.
  30. J. R. Christiansen and P. Z. Skands, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2015) 003.
  31. S. E. Vance, M. Gyulassy, and X. N. Wang, Phys. Lett. B 443, 45 (1998).
  32. P. Z. Skands, Phys. Rev. D 82, 074018 (2010).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. C 112, 054904– Published 17 November, 2025
  • Received 15 April 2025
  • Revised 30 July 2025
  • Accepted 6 October 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation