To study the bulk properties of quark-gluon plasma produced at beam-energy scan (BES) energies at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), we extend the $(3+1)$-dimensional viscous hydrodynamics clvisc to include net baryon number conservation and Israel-Stewart–like equations for baryon diffusion with the neos-bqs equation of state, fluctuating initial conditions from the Monte Carlo Glauber model and the afterburner smash. This integrated framework is shown to provide a good description of identified particle spectra, mean transverse momenta, and anisotropic flows for different centralities and over a wide range of collision energies (7.7–62.4 GeV). It is found that the mean momenta of identified particles and anisotropic flows increase mildly with the collision energy due to larger radial flow. We further compute the multiple-particle cumulant ratio $v_2\left\{4\right\}/v_2\left\{2\right\}$ of elliptic flow across BES energies, and find that the relative fluctuations of elliptic flow are insensitive to the collision energy, consistent with the preliminary STAR data. Our model provides a benchmark for understanding the RHIC-BES data and studying the critical properties and phase structure of hot and dense QCD matter.

• Received 16 July 2021
• Accepted 11 March 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.105.034909

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Published by the American Physical Society