DOE OSTI2026
High-energy, heavy-ion collisions can create local domains of chirality-imbalanced quarks, reflecting the topological features of quantum chromodynamics. The chiral magnetic effect (CME) predicts an electric charge separation of quarks in such topological domains along the magnetic field ($\vec{B}$) generated by the passing of two high-Z nuclei. Here, we use a correlation observable Δ𝛾$^{112}$ between charged meson pairs to detect the CME-induced charge separation and a novel event shape selection (ESS) method to mitigate the background effects related to elliptic flow (𝑣 2 ). The ESS method classifies events based on the emission pattern of final-state particles and determines Δ𝛾$^{112}_{ESS}$ from the zero-flow limit. We reconstruct the $\vec{B}$ field direction from the spectator nucleons, which minimizes backgrounds unrelated to the collective motion of the system. In this work, we report the measurements of Δ𝛾$^{112}$ and a background indicator Δ𝛾$^{132}$ in Au+Au collisions from the Brookhaven National Laboratory Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) Beam Energy Scan phase II and at the top RHIC energy. After background suppression, Δ𝛾$^{132}_{ESS}$ aligns with zero, and Δ𝛾$^{112}_{ESS}$ is reduced to no more than 20% of Δ𝛾$^{112}$. We observe a finite residual charge separation with 2.5𝜎, 3𝜎, and 3.2𝜎 significance in the 20–50% centrality range of Au + Au collisions at 11.5, 14.6, and 19.6 GeV. The results at 17.3 and 27 GeV also show positive values but with a lower significance of 1.3𝜎 and 1.1𝜎, respectively. The corresponding Δ𝛾$^{112}_{ESS}$ values at 7.7, 9.2, and 200 GeV are consistent with zero within uncertainties.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗