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Title: Centrality fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions

Journal Article · · Physical Review C
 [1];  [2]
  1. Stony Brook Univ., Stony Brook, NY (United States)
  2. Stony Brook Univ., Stony Brook, NY (United States); Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Volume or centrality fluctuations (CF) are one of the main uncertainties for interpreting the centrality dependence of many experimental observables. The CF is constrained by centrality selection based on particle multiplicity in a reference subevent and contributes to observables measured in another subevent. Using a Glauber-based independent source model, we study the influence of CF on several distributions of multiplicity N and eccentricities εn: p(N), p(εn), p(εn,εm), and p(N,εn), where the effects of CF are quantified using multiparticle cumulants of these distributions. In midcentral collisions, a general relation is established between the multiplicity fluctuation and resulting CF in the reference subevent. In ultracentral collisions, where distribution of particle production sources is strongly distorted, we find these cumulants exhibit rich sign-change patterns, due to observable-dependent non-Gaussianity in the underlying distributions. The details of sign-change pattern change with the size of the collision systems. Simultaneous comparison of these different types of cumulants between model prediction and experimental data can be used to constrain the CF and particle production mechanism in heavy-ion collisions. Since the concepts of centrality and CF are expected to fluctuate in the longitudinal direction within a single event, we propose to use the pseudorapidity-separated subevent cumulant method to explore the nature of intraevent fluctuations of centrality and collective dynamics. The subevent method can be applied for any bulk observable that is sensitive to centrality and has the potential to separate different mechanisms for multiplicity and flow fluctuations happening at different timescales. As a result, the forward detector upgrades at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider will greatly enhance such studies in the future.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012704
OSTI ID:
1482570
Report Number(s):
BNL-209455-2018-JAAM; PRVCAN
Journal Information:
Physical Review C, Vol. 98, Issue 4; ISSN 2469-9985
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 24 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Bridging the gap between event-by-event fluctuation measurements and theory predictions in relativistic nuclear collisions text January 2016
Revealing long-range multi-particle collectivity in small collision systems via subevent cumulants text January 2017
Relative flow fluctuations as a probe of initial state fluctuations text January 2017
Pseudorapidity profile of transverse momentum fluctuations in heavy ion collisions text January 2017
Dynamical initial state model for relativistic heavy-ion collisions text January 2017
Importance of non-flow in mixed-harmonic multi-particle correlations in small collision systems text January 2017
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Cited By (4)

Influence of initial-state momentum anisotropy on the final-state collectivity in small collision systems journal December 2019
Influence of electromagnetic fields in proton-nucleus collisions at relativistic energy journal January 2020
Measurement of the azimuthal anisotropy of charged-particle production in Xe+Xe collisions at sNN =5.44 TeV with the ATLAS detector text January 2020
Influence of initial-state momentum anisotropy on the final-state collectivity in small collision systems text January 2019

Figures / Tables (22)

TABLE I(p. 5)table TABLE I
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