Deciphering Azimuthal Correlations in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

We discuss various sources of azimuthal correlations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The integral measure Phi is applied to quantify the correlations. We first consider separately the correlations caused by the elliptic flow, resonance decays, jets and transverse momentum conservation. An effect of randomly lost particles is also discussed. Using the PYTHIA and HIJING event generators we produce a sample of events which mimic experimental data. By means of kinematic cuts and particle's selection criteria, the data are analyzed to identify a dominant source of correlations.Comment: 8 pages, minor corrections, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Size fluctuations of the initial source and the event-by-event transverse momentum fluctuations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We show that the event-by-event fluctuations of the transverse size of the initial source, which follow directly from the Glauber treatment of the earliest stage of relativistic heavy-ion collisions, cause, after hydrodynamic evolution, fluctuations of the transverse flow velocity at hadronic freeze-out. This in turn leads to event-by-event fluctuations of the average transverse momentum, p_T. Simulations with GLISSANDO for the Glauber phase, followed by a realistic hydrodynamic evolution and statistical hadronization carried out with THERMINATOR, lead to agreement with the RHIC data. In particular, the magnitude of the effect, its centrality dependence, and the weak dependence on the incident energy are properly reproduced. Our results show that bulk of the observed event-by-event p_T fluctuations may be explained by the fluctuations of the size of the initial source.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, version accepted in PR

Strongly Intensive Measures for Multiplicity Fluctuations

The recently proposed two families of strongly intensive measures of fluctuations and correlations are studied within Hadron-String-Dynamics (HSD) transport approach to nucleus-nucleus collisions. We consider the measures $\Delta^{K\pi}$ and $\Sigma^{K\pi}$ for kaon and pion multiplicities in Au+Au collisions in a wide range of collision energies and centralities. These strongly intensive measures appear to cancel the participant number fluctuations. This allows to enlarge the centrality window in the analysis of event-by-event fluctuations up to at least of 10% most central collisions. We also present a comparison of the HSD results with the data of NA49 and STAR collaborations. The HSD describes $\Sigma^{K\pi}$ reasonably well. However, the HSD results depend monotonously on collision energy and do not reproduce the bump-deep structure of $\Delta^{K\pi}$ observed from the NA49 data in the region of the center of mass energy of nucleon pair $\sqrt{s_{NN}}= 8\div 12$ GeV. This fact deserves further studies. The origin of this `structure' is not connected with simple geometrical or limited acceptance effects, as these effects are taken into account in the HSD simulations

System-size dependence of the pion freeze-out volume as a potential signature for the phase transition to a Quark Gluon Plasma

Hanburry-Brown-Twiss (HBT) correlation functions and radii of negatively charged pions from C+C, Si+Si, Cu+Cu, and In+In at lower RHIC/SPS energies are calculated with the UrQMD transport model and the CRAB analyzing program. We find a minimum in the excitation function of the pion freeze-out volume at low transverse momenta and around $E_{lab}\sim 20-30A$GeV which can be related to the transition from hadronic to string matter (which might be interpreted as a pre-cursor of the QGP). The existence of the minimum is explained by the competition of two mechanisms of the particle production, resonance decays and string formation/fragmentation.Comment: 12 pages, 4 fig

Wounded nucleon model with realistic nucleon-nucleon collision profile and observables in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We investigate the influence of the nucleon-nucleon collision profile (probability of interaction as a function of the nucleon-nucleon impact parameter) in the wounded nucleon model and its extensions on several observables measured in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We find that the participant eccentricity coefficient, $\epsilon^\ast$, as well as the higher harmonic coefficients, $\epsilon_n^\ast$, are reduced by 10-20% for mid-peripheral collisions when the realistic (Gaussian) profile is used, as compared to the case with the commonly-used hard-sphere profile. Similarly, the multiplicity fluctuations, treated as the function of the number of wounded nucleons in one of the colliding nuclei, are reduced by 10-20%. This demonstrates that the Glauber Monte Carlo codes should necessarily use the realistic nucleon-nucleon collision profile in precision studies of these observables. The Gaussian collision profile is built-in in {\tt GLISSANDO}.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Charged Particle Production in Proton-, Deuteron-, Oxygen- and Sulphur-Nucleus Collisions at 200 GeV per Nucleon

The transverse momentum and rapidity distributions of net protons and negatively charged hadrons have been measured for minimum bias proton-nucleus and deuteron-gold interactions, as well as central oxygen-gold and sulphur-nucleus collisions at 200 GeV per nucleon. The rapidity density of net protons at midrapidity in central nucleus-nucleus collisions increases both with target mass for sulphur projectiles and with the projectile mass for a gold target. The shape of the rapidity distributions of net protons forward of midrapidity for d+Au and central S+Au collisions is similar. The average rapidity loss is larger than 2 units of rapidity for reactions with the gold target. The transverse momentum spectra of net protons for all reactions can be described by a thermal distribution with `temperatures' between 145 +- 11 MeV (p+S interactions) and 244 +- 43 MeV (central S+Au collisions). The multiplicity of negatively charged hadrons increases with the mass of the colliding system. The shape of the transverse momentum spectra of negatively charged hadrons changes from minimum bias p+p and p+S interactions to p+Au and central nucleus-nucleus collisions. The mean transverse momentum is almost constant in the vicinity of midrapidity and shows little variation with the target and projectile masses. The average number of produced negatively charged hadrons per participant baryon increases slightly from p+p, p+A to central S+S,Ag collisions.Comment: 47 pages, submitted to Z. Phys.

Phase-space dependence of particle-ratio fluctuations in Pb+Pb collisions from 20A to 158A GeV beam energy

A novel approach, the identity method, was used for particle identification and the study of fluctuations of particle yield ratios in Pb+Pb collisions at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). This procedure allows to unfold the moments of the unknown multiplicity distributions of protons (p), kaons (K), pions ($\pi$) and electrons (e). Using these moments the excitation function of the fluctuation measure $\nu_{\text{\text{dyn}}}$[A,B] was measured, with A and B denoting different particle types. The obtained energy dependence of $\nu_{\text{dyn}}$ agrees with previously published NA49 results on the related measure $\sigma_{\text{dyn}}$. Moreover, $\nu_{\text{dyn}}$ was found to depend on the phase space coverage for [K,p] and [K,$\pi$] pairs. This feature most likely explains the reported differences between measurements of NA49 and those of STAR in central Au+Au collisions

Measurement of event-by-event transverse momentum and multiplicity fluctuations using strongly intensive measures Δ[PT,N]\Delta[P_T, N] and Σ[PT,N]\Sigma[P_T, N] in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron

Results from the NA49 experiment at the CERN SPS are presented on event-by-event transverse momentum and multiplicity fluctuations of charged particles, produced at forward rapidities in central Pb+Pb interactions at beam momenta 20$A$, 30$A$, 40$A$, 80$A$, and 158$A$ GeV/c, as well as in systems of different size ($p+p$, C+C, Si+Si, and Pb+Pb) at 158$A$ GeV/c. This publication extends the previous NA49 measurements of the strongly intensive measure $\Phi_{p_T}$ by a study of the recently proposed strongly intensive measures of fluctuations $\Delta[P_T, N]$ and $\Sigma[P_T, N]$. In the explored kinematic region transverse momentum and multiplicity fluctuations show no significant energy dependence in the SPS energy range. However, a remarkable system size dependence is observed for both $\Delta[P_T, N]$ and $\Sigma[P_T, N]$, with the largest values measured in peripheral Pb+Pb interactions. The results are compared with NA61/SHINE measurements in $p+p$ collisions, as well as with predictions of the UrQMD and EPOS models.Comment: 12 pages, 14 figures, to be submitted to PR

Experimental Study of the Shortest Reset Word of Random Automata

In this paper we describe an approach to finding the shortest reset word of a finite synchronizing automaton by using a SAT solver. We use this approach to perform an experimental study of the length of the shortest reset word of a finite synchronizing automaton. The largest automata we considered had 100 states. The results of the experiments allow us to formulate a hypothesis that the length of the shortest reset word of a random finite automaton with $n$ states and 2 input letters with high probability is sublinear with respect to $n$ and can be estimated as $1.95 n^{0.55}.

Production of deuterium, tritium, and 3^3He in central Pb+Pb collisions at 20A, 30A, 40A, 80A, and 158A GeV at the CERN SPS

Production of $d$, $t$, and $^3$He nuclei in central Pb+Pb interactions was studied at five collision energies ($\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 6.3, 7.6, 8.8, 12.3, and 17.3 GeV) with the NA49 detector at the CERN SPS. Transverse momentum spectra, rapidity distributions, and particle ratios were measured. Yields are compared to predictions of statistical models. Phase-space distributions of light nuclei are discussed and compared to those of protons in the context of a coalescence approach. The coalescence parameters $B_2$ and $B_3$, as well as coalescence radii for $d$ and $^3$He were determined as a function of transverse mass at all energies.Comment: 22 pages, 29 figures, 8 tables, for submission to Phys. Rev.