STAR GPC #355

[Prithwish Tribedy <prithwish2005 AT gmail.com>]

Dear Yicheng,

Really sorry to hear about the PRL paper. It’s an uphill battle and on round two it seems the all referees got biased by one negative review. 

Maybe give PRC letters a shot?  Or PLB maybe. 

Best,

Prithwish

Prithwish Tribedy
Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Upton, NY 11973, USA
Phone: +1 631-344-8904, 631-344-3853
Fax: +1 631-344-4206
E-mail: prithwish2005 AT gmail.com

On May 3, 2024, at 8:55 PM, Feng, Yicheng via Star-gpc-355-l <star-gpc-355-l AT lists.bnl.gov> wrote:

Hi GPC, 

Unfortunately, our short paper was rejected by PRL. 

Although we think this work is of good importance, we did not get good luck this time. 

Anyway, I would like to thank you all for your careful review and valuable comments. 

We will discuss among the PAs what to do next. 

If you have any comments, please let me know as well. 

BTW, the long paper is under the proofreading process. Hopefully, we can get it out soon. 

Sincerely,

Yicheng for PAs

---

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Sent: Wednesday, May 1, 2024 8:19 AM
To: Feng, Yicheng <feng216 AT purdue.edu>
Subject: Your_manuscript LK18767 Collaboration

 

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Re: LK18767
    Upper limit on the chiral magnetic effect in isobar collisions at the
    relativistic heavy-ion collider
    by The STAR Collaboration and Yicheng Feng

Dear Dr. Feng,

The above manuscript has been reviewed by our referees.

On the basis of the resulting reports, we conclude that the paper is
unsuitable for publication in Physical Review Letters. We append
comments from the criticism that led to this editorial decision. In
accordance with our standard practice (see memo appended further
below), this concludes our review of your manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Nikhil Karthik
Associate Editor
Physical Review Letters
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Second Report of Referee A -- LK18767/Collaboration
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I appreciate the diligent work of the authors to address my questions
on the combined PRL+PRC submission.

For the PRL piece, unfortunately, I did not find the arguments from
the authors convincing. The paper, while summarizing some real steps
forward, is clearly only an intermediate step with a result that has a
mixed significance or interpretation (at least, at this time). Given
the history of the CME search, I think it is better for the physics
community to wait for the other intended studies and datasets to be
finished, all effects considered, and then report on the final result.

I believe that PRC is a high-profile and excellent journal to inform
the community about this work.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Second Report of Referee B -- LK18767/Collaboration
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The authors have certainly put forward a clear effort to make the case
for acceptance. The authors and I are already in agreement on the
centrality of the core issue for physics in general. The points made
about innovation and second-order non-flow removal are well-taken. I
still think the authors are overestimating the impact of the work. But
overall the work is of very high quality and I continue to lean
towards acceptance. Unfortunately I think there were a few missed
opportunities for further improvement to the paper.

The paper still makes no mention of the magnetic field orientation. I
do not think the general reader of PRL can be expected to know that
the magnetic field direction is approximately aligned with psiRP *or*
psi2, so the additional text about psi2 is important but insufficient.
The expected orientation of the magnetic field needs to be made clear
and explicit before the paper can be accepted in PRL.

The authors replied with a helpful comment about conservation of
charge in HIJING. I think it's very important to include a few words
to that effect right after HIJING is introduced and the absence of
flow is stated. The general reader of PRL may not have a good sense of
which conservation laws are present or absent in various event
generators, and conservation of charge is essential for fully
understanding the backgrounds here, so this is essential context.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Report of Referee C -- LK18767/Collaboration
----------------------------------------------------------------------

In this manuscript, the STAR collaboration presents a follow-up study
searching for evidence of the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) using RHIC
isobar collisions, subsequent to the first blind analyses published in
Physical Review C (PRC). Compared to previous measurements, this paper
estimates the contributions from non-flow correlations as a background
baseline to the isobar ratio ( Y ) using isobar data and HIJING
simulations. With this new approach, the estimated background baseline
suggests an upper limit of 10% for the CME fraction at a 95%
confidence level in isobar collisions at √s_NN =200 GeV. Overall, the
paper is well-written; the "refined baseline" and the dedicated study
on the "three ingredients", which are the main improvements compared
to the previous blind analyses, are well explained. The correctness of
the measurements, recognized by both referees, is not in doubt.
However, I would not recommend publication in Physical Review Letters
but suggest consideration in Physical Review C, taking into account
the reports from both referees.

• For the PRL criteria, this paper clearly presents high-quality
measurements, and the study of the CME is valid.

• I fully agree with Referee A that the impact of the presented paper
is very limited. The main improvement in this paper is the refined
baseline study, which is highly technical. The discussions presented
on page 2 are well explained but are intended for CME experts or
perhaps correlation experts in the field of heavy-ion physics.

• I find it difficult to see the innovation in this study either,
considering that the 2- and 3-particle correlations have been widely
used in many previous publications, and the unique concept of the
isobar run has also been carefully discussed in the previous PRC
paper.

• As Referee B nicely pointed out, the search for P- and CP-violation
in the strong sector is a key question in physics. An advanced study
of the CME, if it significantly improves the extraction of the CME
signal, would interest the general reader of PRL. However, I
understand Referee B's hesitation regarding the recommendation for
publication because the presented work does not represent a major step
toward the discovery of the CME but rather modest improvements
compared to the previous PRC paper. The main content is rather
technical, with detailed studies on background estimations, which are
almost impossible for the general reader of PRL to follow and thus
will unlikely trigger any general interest.

Thus, I conclude that I do not recommend publication in PRL, aligning
with Referee A's suggestion and partially agreeing with Referee B.

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