Elsevier

Physics Letters B

Volume 809, 10 October 2020, 135746
Physics Letters B

Feeddown contributions from unstable nuclei in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2020.135746Get rights and content
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Abstract

We estimate the feeddown contributions from decays of unstable A=4 and A=5 nuclei to the final yields of protons, deuterons, tritons, 3He, and 4He produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at sNN>2.4 GeV, using the statistical model. The feeddown contribution effects do not exceed 5% at LHC and top RHIC energies due to the large penalty factors involved, but are substantial at intermediate collision energies. We observe large feeddown contributions for tritons, 3He, and 4He at sNN10 GeV, where they may account for as much as 70% of the final yield at the lower end of the collision energies considered. Sizable (>10%) effects for deuteron yields are observed at sNN4 GeV. The results suggest that the excited nuclei feeddown cannot be neglected in the ongoing and future analysis of light nuclei production at intermediate collision energies, including HADES and CBM experiments at FAIR, NICA at JINR, RHIC beam energy scan and fixed-target programmes, and NA61/SHINE at CERN. We further show that the freeze-out curve in the T-μB plane itself is affected significantly by the light nuclei at high baryochemical potential.

Keywords

Statistical model
Light nuclei production
Excited nuclei

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