Baseline study for higher moments of net-charge distribution at RHIC energies

Understand

Lattice QCD models predict the presence of a critical point in the QCD phase diagram where the first order phase transition between the hadron gas and Quark-Gluon Plasma ceases to exist.

• Higher moments of conserved quantities, such as net-charge, net-baryon number and net-strangeness, are proposed to be sensitive probes for locating the critical point.
• The moments of net-charge distributions have been studied as a function of centrality for {Au+Au} collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 7.7 to 200 GeV using three event generators, {\it viz.}, UrQMD, HIJING, and THERMINATOR-2.
• The effect of centrality selection, resonance production, as well as contributions from particle species to the net-charge moments and their products have been studied.