Role of in hyperon polarization in relativistic heavy ion collisions
Phys. Rev. C 113, 014908 – Published 14 January, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/tvsk-sj4q
Abstract
The effect of baryon resonance on the time evolution of the hyperon polarization in hadronic matter is studied using a spin-dependent kinetic approach. This approach explicitly includes the production of the resonance from the and scatterings as well as its decay into or , all including explicitly their spin dependence. The resulting coupled kinetic equations governing the time evolution of , and numbers and polarizations are solved for Au-Au collisions at GeV and 20–50% centrality, using initial values determined by their thermal yields and the thermal vorticity in the hadronic matter at chemical freeze-out temperature. As the hadronic matter expands and cools, the polarization is found to increase slightly during early times and then decreases very slowly afterwards, while the polarization remains nearly constant and the polarization continuously decreases. Including feed-down contributions to the polarization from the decays of partially polarized , and hyperons, where the polarization is obtained by solving coupled kinetic equations for the and system, the resulting polarization becomes smaller and decreases over time. In both cases, the time variation of the polarization is, however, sufficiently small to support the assumption of an early freeze-out of spin degree of freedom in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.