Baryon Number Correlations in Heavy Ion Collisions

Abstract: The cross-over region of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in heavy ion collisions is influenced by the nearby deconfinement, chiral and baryon condensation phase transitions. A characteristic signature of the deconfinement transition in this region can be infered using the flux tube model, which is dual to the Polyakov loop description and which offers a visual picture of what happens during the transition. The three-point (anti)vertices of a flux tube network lead to formation of (anti)baryons upon hadronisation. Since there is no fundamental interaction associated with the baryon number, correlations in the baryon number distribution at the last scattering surface directly reflect the preceding pattern of the flux tube vertices in the QGP. An alternating pattern of vertices and antivertices would lead to an oscillatory signal in the two-point baryon number correlations, under the experimental conditions prevalent in heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC. The strength of the oscillations is a measure of the flexibility of the QGP.