Charge-dependent pair correlations relative to a third particle in $p$+Au and $d$+Au collisions at RHIC

Understand

Quark interactions with topological gluon configurations can induce chirality imbalance and local parity violation in quantum chromodynamics.

• This can lead to electric charge separation along the strong magnetic field in relativistic heavy-ion collisions -- the chiral magnetic effect (CME).
• We report measurements by the STAR collaboration of a CME-sensitive observable in $p$+Au and $d$+Au collisions at 200 GeV, where the CME is not expected, using charge-dependent pair correlations relative to a third particle.
• We observe strong charge-dependent correlations similar to those measured in heavy-ion collisions.