Probing freeze-out conditions in heavy ion collisions with moments of charge fluctuations

We calculate the first four moments of baryon number, electric charge and strangeness fluctuations within the hadron resonance gas model. Different moments and their ratios as well as skewness and kurtosis are evaluated on the phenomenologically determined freeze-out curve in the temperature, baryon chemical potential plane. The model results and its predictions as well as relations between different moments are compared with the first data on net proton fluctuations in Au-Au collisions obtained at RHIC by the STAR Collaboration. We find good agreement between the model calculations and experimental results. We also point out that higher order moments should be more sensitive to critical behavior and will also distinguish hadron resonance gas model calculations from results obtained from lattice QCD. Published by Elsevier B.V.