Event-by-Event Fluctuations and the Search for the Critical Point within the NA49 Experiment

In heavy-ion collisions in the energy regime probed at the CERN SPS, experimental hints for the deconfinement phase transition have been seen in numerous inclusive hadronic observables. In order to further characterize this transition, and in the pursuit of indications for the expected critical point of strongly interacting matter, the NA49 collaboration has conducted analyses of the event-by-event fluctuations of various hadronic observables. A selection of these results will be presented and discussed in the light of theoretical predictions. Among these are new results on hadron ratio fluctuations, in particular K/p fluctuations and their potential connection to the correlation between strangeness and baryon number, thus revealing the basic degrees of freedom produced in heavy-ion collisions.

[1]  V. Cerný,et al.  The NA49 Collaboration , 2009 .

[2]  M. Botje,et al.  Energy dependence of multiplicity fluctuations in heavy ion collisions at 20A to 158A GeV , 2008 .

[3]  G. G. Stokes.  "J." , 1890, The New Yale Book of Quotations.

[4]  Z. Fodor,et al.  Critical point of QCD at finite T and mu, lattice results for physical quark masses , 2004, hep-lat/0402006.

[5]  S. Bass,et al.  UrQMD-2.3 - Changes and Comparisons , 2008, 0805.0567.

[6]  V. Cerný,et al.  Pion and kaon production in central Pb+Pb collisions at 20A and 30A GeV: Evidence for the onset of deconfinement , 2007, 0710.0118.

[7]  for the NA49 collaboration,et al.  Search for the critical point of strongly interacting matter in NA49 , 2009, 0907.4101.

[8]  G. S. Averichev,et al.  K/pi Fluctuations at relativistic energies. , 2009, Physical review letters.

[9]  M. Stephanov,et al.  Non-Gaussian fluctuations near the QCD critical point. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[10]  K. Redlich,et al.  Kurtosis and compressibility near the chiral phase transition , 2008, 0809.3129.

[11]  M. Botje,et al.  Centrality and system size dependence of multiplicity fluctuations in nuclear collisions at 158A GeV , 2007 .

[12]  M. Gazdzicki.  Report from NA49 , 2004 .

[13]  K. Rajagopal,et al.  Slowing out-of-equilibrium near the QCD critical point , 1999, hep-ph/9912274.

[14]  J. Randrup,et al.  Baryon-strangeness correlations: a diagnostic of strongly interacting matter. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[15]  F. Karsch.  Recent lattice results on finite temperature and density QCD, part I , 2007, 0711.0656.

[16]  F. Becattini,et al.  Energy and system size dependence of chemical freeze-out in relativistic nuclear collisions , 2005, hep-ph/0511092.

[17]  Universality, the QCD critical and tricritical point, and the quark number susceptibility , 2002, hep-ph/0210284.

[18]  S. Bass,et al.  RELATIVISTIC HADRON-HADRON COLLISIONS IN THE ULTRA-RELATIVISTIC QUANTUM MOLECULAR DYNAMICS MODEL , 1999, hep-ph/9909407.

[19]  C. Jung,et al.  Baryon Number, Strangeness and Electric Charge Fluctuations in QCD at High Temperature , 2008, 0811.1006.

[20]  R. Rosenfeld.  Nature , 2009, Otolaryngology--head and neck surgery : official journal of American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

[21]  V. Konchakovski,et al.  Fluctuations of the K/{pi} ratio in nucleus-nucleus collisions: Statistical and transport models , 2008, 0811.3089.