{
  "abstract": "Net-proton cumulants in the Beam Energy Scan region of heavy-ion collisions are widely used to probe critical fluctuations associated with the conjectured critical endpoint of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). Most existing studies, however, concentrate on the initial-state or phase-transition contributions, while the impact of hadronic rescattering on these observables has not been fully quantified. To address this gap, we construct event-by-event proton and antiproton distributions from functional renormalization group (fRG) cumulants using the maximum entropy principle, and propagate the resulting particles through the hadronic transport model SMASH in a simplified spherical evolution setup. We systematically investigate how the hadronic cascade modifies net-proton cumulants at collision energies $\\sqrt{s_{NN}}=3.0$, 3.9, 4.9, 7.2, and 7.7~GeV. In the canonical-ensemble framework, which enforces exact net-baryon number conservation, the higher-order cumulant signal---in particular the ratio $C_4/C_2$ at $\\sqrt{s_{NN}}=4.9$~GeV---is strongly reduced during the early stage of the cascade; the suppression of $C_4/C_2$ reaches approximately $20\\%$. The non-monotonic energy dependence inherited from the fRG input survives the hadronic evolution, but its magnitude is substantially modified. These results demonstrate that hadronic rescattering provides a non-negligible background effect that must be accounted for when extracting QCD critical-point signals from experimental data.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2608.28299",
  "author_total": 7,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Qianru Lin"
    },
    {
      "name": "Shi Yin"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jianing Li"
    },
    {
      "name": "Hannah Elfner"
    },
    {
      "name": "Fabian Rennecke"
    },
    {
      "name": "Long-Gang Pang"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jan M. Pawlowski"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2c6smmpk4nsk4.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2608.28299",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "2c6smmpk4nsk4",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28299",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "nucl-th"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.28299",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-08-28",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2c6smmpk4nsk4.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:22Z",
      "native_id": "2608.28299",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28299"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:nucl-th",
      "subfield": "nuclear"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Hadronic rescattering effects on net-proton cumulants from functional renormalization group calculations",
  "title_text": "Hadronic rescattering effects on net-proton cumulants from functional renormalization group calculations",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:22Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2c6smmpk4nsk4",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}