2014/12/01 by K. A. Bugaev, O. Ivanytskyi, A. I. Ivanytskyi +17 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1412.0718
35 pages, figure 14 with new data is added, references are updated
openalex publication_date 2014/12/01 · arxiv created 2015/10/05 · arxiv updated 2015/10/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Using an advanced version of the hadron resonance gas model we have found indications for irregularities in data for hadrons produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. These include an abrupt change of the effective number of degrees of freedom, a change of the slope of the ratio of lambda hyperons to protons at laboratory energies 8.6--11.6 AGeV, as well as highly correlated plateaus in the collision-energy dependence of the entropy per baryon, total pion number per baryon, and thermal pion number per baryon at laboratory energies 6.9-11.6 AGeV. Also, we observe a sharp peak in the dimensionless trace anomaly at a laboratory energy of 11.6 AGeV. On the basis of the generalized shock-adiabat model we demonstrate that these observations give evidence for the anomalous thermodynamic properties of the mixed phase at its boundary to the quark-gluon plasma. We argue that the trace-anomaly peak and the local minimum of the generalized specific volume observed at a laboratory energy of 11.6 AGeV provide a signal for the formation of a mixed phase between the quark-gluon plasma and the hadron phase. This naturally explains the change of slope in the energy dependence of the yield of lambda hyperons per proton at a laboratory energy of 8.6 GeV.