- Letter
- Open Access
Upper limit on the chiral magnetic effect in isobar collisions at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider
Phys. Rev. Research 6, L032005 – Published 9 July, 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.L032005
Abstract
The chiral magnetic effect (CME) is a phenomenon that arises from the QCD anomaly in the presence of an external magnetic field. The experimental search for its evidence has been one of the key goals of the physics program of the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider. The STAR Collaboration has previously presented the results of a blind analysis of isobar collisions () in the search for the CME. The isobar ratio () of CME-sensitive observable, charge separation scaled by elliptic anisotropy, is close to but systematically larger than the inverse multiplicity ratio, the naive background baseline. This indicates the potential existence of a CME signal and the presence of remaining nonflow background due to two- and three-particle correlations, which are different between the isobars. In this postblind analysis, we estimate the contributions from those nonflow correlations as a background baseline to , utilizing the isobar data as well as Heavy Ion Jet Interaction Generator simulations. This baseline is found consistent with the isobar ratio measurement, and an upper limit of 10% at 95% confidence level is extracted for the CME fraction in the charge separation measurement in isobar collisions at GeV.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
See Also
Article Text
References (42)
- K. Fukushima, D. E. Kharzeev, and H. J. Warringa, The chiral magnetic effect, Phys. Rev. D 78, 074033 (2008).
- P. D. Morley and I. A. Schmidt, Strong P, CP, T violations in heavy ion collisions, Z. Phys. C 26, 627 (1985).
- D. Kharzeev, R. Pisarski, and M. H. Tytgat, Possibility of spontaneous parity violation in hot QCD, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 512 (1998).
- D. Kharzeev, Parity violation in hot QCD: Why it can happen, and how to look for it, Phys. Lett. B 633, 260 (2006).
- D. E. Kharzeev, L. D. McLerran, and H. J. Warringa, The Effects of topological charge change in heavy ion collisions: ‘Event by event P and CP violation', Nucl. Phys. A 803, 227 (2008).
- M. Dine and A. Kusenko, Origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry, Rev. Mod. Phys. 76, 1 (2003).
- S. A. Voloshin, Parity violation in hot QCD: How to detect it, Phys. Rev. C 70, 057901 (2004).
- A. M. Poskanzer and S. Voloshin, Methods for analyzing anisotropic flow in relativistic nuclear collisions, Phys. Rev. C 58, 1671 (1998).
- F. Wang, Effects of cluster particle correlations on local parity violation observables, Phys. Rev. C 81, 064902 (2010).
- A. Bzdak, V. Koch, and J. Liao, Remarks on possible local parity violation in heavy ion collisions, Phys. Rev. C 81, 031901 (2010).
- S. Schlichting and S. Pratt, Charge conservation at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and contributions to local parity violation observables, Phys. Rev. C 83, 014913 (2011).
- B. Abelev et al. (STAR Collaboration), Azimuthal charged-particle correlations and possible local strong parity violation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 251601 (2009).
- B. Abelev et al. (STAR Collaboration), Observation of charge-dependent azimuthal correlations and possible local strong parity violation in heavy ion collisions, Phys. Rev. C 81, 054908 (2010).
- B. Abelev et al. (ALICE Collaboration), Charge separation relative to the reaction plane in Pb-Pb collisions at , Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 012301 (2013).
- L. Adamczyk et al. (STAR Collaboration), Fluctuations of charge separation perpendicular to the event plane and local parity violation in Au+Au collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, Phys. Rev. C 88, 064911 (2013).
- L. Adamczyk et al. (STAR Collaboration), Measurement of charge multiplicity asymmetry correlations in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions at GeV, Phys. Rev. C 89, 044908 (2014).
- L. Adamczyk et al. (STAR Collaboration), Beam-energy dependence of charge separation along the magnetic field in Au+Au collisions at RHIC, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 052302 (2014).
- J. Adam et al. (STAR Collaboration), Charge-dependent pair correlations relative to a third particle in Au and Au collisions at RHIC, Phys. Lett. B 798, 134975 (2019).
- M. S. Abdallah et al. (STAR Collaboration), Pair invariant mass to isolate background in the search for the chiral magnetic effect in Au + Au collisions at GeV, Phys. Rev. C 106, 034908 (2022).
- M. Abdallah et al. (STAR Collaboration), Search for the chiral magnetic effect via charge-dependent azimuthal correlations relative to spectator and participant planes in Au+Au collisions at , Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 092301 (2022).
- V. Khachatryan et al. (CMS Collaboration), Observation of charge-dependent azimuthal correlations in -Pb collisions and its implication for the search for the chiral magnetic effect, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 122301 (2017).
- A. M. Sirunyan et al. (CMS Collaboration), Constraints on the chiral magnetic effect using charge-dependent azimuthal correlations in and PbPb collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, Phys. Rev. C 97, 044912 (2018).
- S. Acharya et al. (ALICE Collaboration), Constraining the magnitude of the chiral magnetic effect with event shape engineering in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV, Phys. Lett. B 777, 151 (2018).
- S. Acharya et al. (ALICE Collaboration), Constraining the chiral magnetic effect with charge-dependent azimuthal correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at and 5.02 TeV, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2020) 160.
- M. Abdallah et al. (STAR Collaboration), Search for the chiral magnetic effect with isobar collisions at GeV by the STAR Collaboration at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, Phys. Rev. C 105, 014901 (2022).
- S. A. Voloshin, Testing the chiral magnetic effect with central U+U collisions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 172301 (2010).
- V. Koch, S. Schlichting, V. Skokov, P. Sorensen, J. Thomas, S. Voloshin, G. Wang, and H.-U. Yee, Status of the chiral magnetic effect and collisions of isobars, Chin. Phys. C 41, 072001 (2017).
- H.-J. Xu, X. Wang, H. Li, J. Zhao, Z.-W. Lin, C. Shen, and F. Wang, Importance of isobar density distributions on the chiral magnetic effect search, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 022301 (2018).
- H. Li, H.-j. Xu, J. Zhao, Z.-W. Lin, H. Zhang, X. Wang, C. Shen, and F. Wang, Multiphase transport model predictions of isobaric collisions with nuclear structure from density functional theory, Phys. Rev. C 98, 054907 (2018).
- H.-j. Xu, H. Li, X. Wang, C. Shen, and F. Wang, Determine the neutron skin type by relativistic isobaric collisions, Phys. Lett. B 819, 136453 (2021).
- D. E. Kharzeev, J. Liao, and S. Shi, Implications of the isobar-run results for the chiral magnetic effect in heavy-ion collisions, Phys. Rev. C 106, L051903 (2022).
- M. I. Abdulhamid et al. (STAR Collaboration), companion paper, Estimate of background baseline and upper limit on the chiral magnetic effect in isobar collisions at GeV at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, Phys. Rev. C 110, 014905 (2024).
- J.-Y. Ollitrault, Anisotropy as a signature of transverse collective flow, Phys. Rev. D 46, 229 (1992).
- Y. Feng, J. Zhao, H. Li, H.-j. Xu, and F. Wang, Two- and three-particle nonflow contributions to the chiral magnetic effect measurement by spectator and participant planes in relativistic heavy ion collisions, Phys. Rev. C 105, 024913 (2022).
- D. Shen, J. Chen, A. Tang, and G. Wang, Impact of globally spin-aligned vector mesons on the search for the chiral magnetic effect in heavy-ion collisions, Phys. Lett. B 839, 137777 (2023).
- G. Yan, Probing initial- and final-state effects of Heavy-ion Collisions with STAR Experiment, Acta Phys. Pol. B Proc. Suppl. 16, 1-A137 (2023).
- X.-N. Wang and M. Gyulassy, hijing: A Monte Carlo model for multiple jet production in pp, pA, and AA collisions, Phys. Rev. D 44, 3501 (1991).
- M. Gyulassy and X.-N. Wang, HIJING 1.0: A Monte Carlo program for parton and particle production in high-energy hadronic and nuclear collisions, Comput. Phys. Commun. 83, 307 (1994).
- V. Skokov, A. Yu. Illarionov, and V. Toneev, Estimate of the magnetic field strength in heavy-ion collisions, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 24, 5925 (2009).
- A. Bzdak and V. Skokov, Event-by-event fluctuations of magnetic and electric fields in heavy ion collisions, Phys. Lett. B 710, 171 (2012).
- W.-T. Deng and X.-G. Huang, Event-by-event generation of electromagnetic fields in heavy-ion collisions, Phys. Rev. C 85, 044907 (2012).
- G. J. Feldman and R. D. Cousins, A unified approach to the classical statistical analysis of small signals, Phys. Rev. D 57, 3873 (1998).