Observation of charge-dependent azimuthal correlations and possible local strong parity violation in heavy ion collisions

By S. C. B. Abelev, et al. 2009

274 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Parity-odd domains, corresponding to non-trivial topological solutions of the QCD vacuum, might be created during relativistic heavy-ion collisions. These domains are predicted to lead to charge separation of quarks along the orbital momentum of the system created in non-central collisions. To study this effect, we investigate a three particle mixed harmonics azimuthal correlator which is a \P-even observable, but directly sensitive to the charge separation effect. We report measurements of this observable using the STAR detector in Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=200 and 62~GeV. The results are presented as a function of collision centrality, particle separation in rapidity, and particle transverse momentum. A signal consistent with several of the theoretical expectations is detected in all four data sets. We compare our results to the predictions of existing event generators, and discuss in detail possible contributions from other effects that are not related to parity violation.

Subfields: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7ecea538328d3c587bb929ebdc142f3f3ef6af92

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In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Citations in the corpus

The sphaleron rate in SU(N) gauge theory (2010, background): “Indeed, recently Kharzeev, McLerran and Warringa have argued that topological fluctuations may play an important role in creating local fluctuations or imbalances in left-handed versus right-handed quark number [18, 19], which could have very interesting experimental signatures [20, 21].”
Particle Production in Strong Electromagnetic Fields in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions (2013, background): “This effect is a possible explanation of experimentally observed charge asymmetry fluctuations [73–75].”