| Abstract: | We report the first measurements of the kurtosis (kappa), skewness (S) and
variance (sigma^2) of net-proton multiplicity (N_p - N_pbar) distributions at
midrapidity for Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 19.6, 62.4, and 200 GeV
corresponding to baryon chemical potentials (mu_B) between 200 - 20 MeV. Our
measurements of the products kappa sigma^2 and S sigma, which can be related
to theoretical calculations sensitive to baryon number susceptibilities and
long range correlations, are constant as functions of collision centrality. We
compare these products with results from lattice QCD and various models without
a critical point and study the sqrt(s_NN) dependence of kappa sigma^2. From
the measurements at the three beam energies, we find no evidence for a critical
point in the QCD phase diagram for mu_B below 200 MeV. |
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