STAR Results from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan-I

Abstract

The Beam Energy Scan (BES) program is being pursued at RHIC to study the QCD phase diagram, and search for the possible QCD phase boundary and possible QCD critical point. The data for Phase-I of the BES program have been collected for Au+Au collisions at center-of-mass energies ($\sqrt{s_{NN}}$) of 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, and 39 GeV. These collision energies allowed the STAR experiment to cover a wide range of baryon chemical potential $\mu_{B}$ (100--400 MeV) in the QCD phase diagram. We report on several interesting results from the BES Phase-I covering the high net-baryon density region. These results shed light on particle production mechanism and freeze-out conditions, first-order phase transition and "turn-off" of QGP signatures, and existence of a critical point in the phase diagram. Finally, we give an outlook for the future BES Phase-II program and a possible fixed target program at STAR.