Initial conditions for relativistic heavy-ion collisions may be far from equilibrium (i.e. there are large initial contributions from the shear stress tensor and bulk pressure) but it is expected that on very short time scales the dynamics converge to a universal attractor that defines hydrodynamic behavior. Thus far, studies of this nature have only considered an idealized situation at LHC energies (high temperatures T and vanishing baryon chemical potential µB = 0) but, in this work, we investigate for the first time how far-from-equilibrium effects may influence experimentally driven searches for the Quantum Chromodynamic critical point at RHIC. We find that the path to the critical point is heavily influenced by far from equilibrium initial conditions where viscous effects lead to dramatically different {T, µB} trajectories through the QCD phase diagram. We compare hydrodynamic equations of motion with shear and bulk coupled together at finite µB for both DNMR and phenomenological Israel-Stewart equations of motion and discuss their influence on potential attractors at finite µB and their corresponding {T, µB} trajectories.

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The existence of hydrodynamic attractors in rapidly expanding relativistic systems has shed light on the success of relativistic hydrodynamics in describing heavy-ion collisions at zero chemical potential. As the search for the QCD critical point continues, it is important to investigate how out of equilibrium effects influence the trajectories on the QCD phase diagram. In this proceedings, we study a Bjorken expanding hydrodynamic system based on DMNR equations of motion with initial out of equilibrium effects and finite chemical potential in a system with a critical point. We find that the initial conditions are not unique for a specific freeze-out point, but rather the system can evolve to the same final state freeze-out point with a wide range of initial baryon chemical potential, µB . For the same initial energy density and baryon density, depending on how far out of equilibrium the system begins, the initial µB can vary by ΔµB ∼ 350 MeV. Our results indicate that knowledge of the out-of-equilibrium effects in the initial state provide vital information that influences the search for the QCD critical point.

We report on the lifetime measurement of the 6 1Σg+(7,31) state of Na2 molecules, produced in a heat-pipe oven, using a time-resolved spectroscopic technique. The 6 1Σg+(7,31) level was populated by two-step two-color double resonance excitation via the intermediate A 1Σu+(8,30) state. The excitation scheme was done using two synchronized pulsed dye lasers pumped by a Nd:YAG laser operating at the second harmonics. The fluorescence emitted upon decay to the final state was measured using a time-correlated photon counting technique, as a function of argon pressure. From this, the radiative lifetime was extracted by extrapolating the plot to collision-free zero pressure. We also report the calculated radiative lifetimes of the Na2 6 1Σg+ ro-vibrational levels in the range of v = 0–200 with J = 1 and J = 31 using the LEVEL program for bound-bound and the BCONT program for bound-free transitions. Our calculations reveal the importance of the bound-free transitions on the lifetime calculations and a large difference of about a factor of three between the J = 1 and J = 31 for the v = 40 and v = 100, respectively, due to the wavefunction alternating between having predominantly inner and outer well amplitude.

We use the excluded volume Hadron Resonance Gas (HRG) model with the most up-to-date hadron list to calculate ηT/w at low temperatures and at finite baryon densities ρB. This ηT/w is then matched to a QCD-based shear viscosity calculation of the QGP for different profiles of ηT/w across T,μB including cross-over and critical point transitions. When compared to ideal hydrodynamic trajectories across T,μB, we find that the ηT/w(T,μB) profiles would require initial conditions at much larger baryon density to reach the same freeze-out point.