Net charge fluctuations at RHIC

Abstract

We present measurements of dynamical net charge fluctuations in Au+Au collisions at $$\sqrt {s_{NN} } = 20$$ , 62, 130 and 200 GeV using the measure ν +−,dyn. We observe the dynamical fluctuations are finite at all energies, and do not exhibit dependence on beam energy. We find net charge fluctuations violate the trivial 1/N scaling expected for nuclear collisions consisting of independent nucleon-nucleon interactions. We also find dynamical fluctuations exhibit sizable dependence of the pseudo-rapidity and azimuthal ranges of integration. We compare measured data with transport models and a toy model invoking radial flow, and show the bulk of the measured correlations can be accounted for by resonance production and radial collective flow.