Impact of resonance regeneration and decay on the net proton fluctuations in a hadron resonance gas

We investigate net proton fluctuations as important observables measured in heavy-ion collisions within the hadron resonance gas (HRG) model. Special emphasis is given to effects which are a priori not inherent in a thermally and chemically equilibrated HRG approach. In particular, we point out the importance of taking into account the successive regeneration and decay of resonances after the chemical freeze-out, which lead to a randomization of the isospin of nucleons and thus to additional fluctuations in the net proton number. We find good agreement between our model results and the recent STAR measurements of the higher-order moments of the net proton distribution