Femtoscopy at NA61/SHINE using symmetric Lévy sources in central $^{40}$Ar+$^{45}$Sc from 40$A$ GeV/$c$ to 150$A$ GeV/$c$ (2406.02242v3)

Abstract: In the recent decades of high energy physics research, it was demonstrated that strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma (sQGP) is created in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions. Investigation and understanding of properties of the hadronic matter is among the important goals of NA61/SHINE collaboration at CERN SPS. Mapping of the phase diagram is achieved by varying the collision energy (5 GeV $<\sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}}<$17 GeV) and by changing the collision system (p+p, p+Pb, Be+Be, Ar+Sc, Xe+La, Pb+Pb). We report on the measurement of femtoscopic correlations in intermediate system at intermediate SPS energies. Interpreting the results of measurements within the symmetric L\'evy source formalism, we discuss the values of L\'evy source parameters as a function of average pair transverse mass. One of the physical parameters is particularly important, the L\'evy exponent $\alpha$, which describes the shape of the source and may be related to the critical exponent $\eta$ in the proximity of the critical point. Therefore, measuring it may shed light on the location of the critical endpoint of the QCD phase diagram.