Harmonic decomposition of three-particle azimuthal correlations at energies available at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

Abstract

Author(s): Adamczyk, L; Adkins, JK; Agakishiev, G; Aggarwal, MM; Ahammed, Z; Ajitanand, NN; Alekseev, I; Anderson, DM; Aoyama, R; Aparin, A; Arkhipkin, D; Aschenauer, EC; Ashraf, MU; Attri, A; Averichev, GS; Bai, X; Bairathi, V; Behera, A; Bellwied, R; Bhasin, A; Bhati, AK; Bhattarai, P; Bielcik, J; Bielcikova, J; Bland, LC; Bordyuzhin, IG; Bouchet, J; Brandenburg, JD; Brandin, AV; Brown, D; Bunzarov, I; Butterworth, J; Caines, H; Sanchez, M Calderon de la Barca; Campbell, JM; Cebra, D; Chakaberia, I; Chaloupka, P; Chang, Z; Chankova-Bunzarova, N; Chatterjee, A; Chattopadhyay, S; Chen, X; Chen, JH; Cheng, J; Cherney, M; Christie, W; Contin, G; Crawford, HJ; Das, S; De Silva, LC; Debbe, RR; Dedovich, TG; Deng, J; Derevschikov, AA; Didenko, L; Dilks, C; Dong, X; Drachenberg, JL; Draper, JE; Dunkelberger, LE; Dunlop, JC; Efimov, LG; Elsey, N; Engelage, J; Eppley, G; Esha, R; Esumi, S; Evdokimov, O; Ewigleben, J; Eyser, O; Fatemi, R; Fazio, S; Federic, P; Federicova, P; Fedorisin, J; Feng, Z; Filip, P; Finch, E; Fisyak, Y; Flores, CE; Fulek, L; Gagliardi, CA; Garand, D; Geurts, F | Abstract: We present measurements of three-particle correlations for various harmonics in Au+Au collisions at energies ranging from $\sqrt{s_{{\rm NN}}}=7.7$ to 200 GeV using the STAR detector. The quantity $\langle\cos(m\phi_1+n\phi_2-(m+n)\phi_3)\rangle$ is evaluated as a function of $\sqrt{s_{{\rm NN}}}$, collision centrality, transverse momentum, $p_T$, pseudo-rapidity difference, $\Delta\eta$, and harmonics ($m$ and $n$). These data provide detailed information on global event properties like the three-dimensional structure of the initial overlap region, the expansion dynamics of the matter produced in the collisions, and the transport properties of the medium. A strong dependence on $\Delta\eta$ is observed for most harmonic combinations consistent with breaking of longitudinal boost invariance. Data reveal changes with energy in the two-particle correlation functions relative to the second-harmonic event-plane and provide ways to constrain models of heavy-ion collisions over a wide range of collision energies.