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Title: Centrality fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

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(εnm), 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 exploremore » 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.« less

Authors:
 [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)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
OSTI Identifier:
1482570
Report Number(s):
BNL-209455-2018-JAAM
Journal ID: ISSN 2469-9985; PRVCAN
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0012704
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Physical Review C
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 98; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 2469-9985
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS

Citation Formats

Zhou, Mingliang, and Jia, Jiangyong. Centrality fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.98.044903.
Zhou, Mingliang, & Jia, Jiangyong. Centrality fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.98.044903
Zhou, Mingliang, and Jia, Jiangyong. Tue . "Centrality fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.98.044903. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1482570.
@article{osti_1482570,
title = {Centrality fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions},
author = {Zhou, Mingliang and Jia, Jiangyong},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevC.98.044903},
journal = {Physical Review C},
number = 4,
volume = 98,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Oct 16 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Tue Oct 16 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}

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Cited by: 24 works
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Figures / Tables:

TABLE I TABLE I: The various parameters sets for the NBD (Eq. 1) used for modeling the particle production in the wounded nucleon model (left) and two-component model (right). The parameters with apostrophe have the same $\hat{σ}$ but smaller $\bar{n}$ than the corresponding ones without apostrophe (e.g. Par0 vs Par0′).

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Works referencing / citing this record:

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
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Measurement of the azimuthal anisotropy of charged-particle production in Xe+Xe collisions at sNN =5.44 TeV with the ATLAS detector
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