Analytical formula for multiplicity distribution is derived in the QO approach, where chaotic and coherent fields are contained. Observed charged multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ AGeV and in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=900$ GeV are analyzed by the formula. Chaoticity parameters in the inclusive events estimated from the analysis of multiplicity distributions are compared with those estimated from the analysis of observed two-particle inclusive identical particle correlations.
Bayesian constraints on the transport coefficients $η/s$ and $ζ/s$ from spin polarization in relativisitic heavy-ion collisions
Università di Firenze（佛罗伦萨大学）；Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Firenze（佛罗伦萨大学物理系）；Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre（变能回旋加速器中心）；INFN Sezione di Firenze（佛罗伦萨意大利国家核物理研究所）
We present a simple gluon production picture which is based on the McLerran-Venugopalan model and gluon BFKL evolution in relativistic heavy ion collision. Results for the multiplicity and transverse energy distribution in both the central and forward rapidity regions for gluon production in early stages of heavy ion collisions at the LHC are given. Finally, we provide a general qualitative discussion of the consequences of the forward rapidity behavior of produced gluons.
We discuss the recently measured event-by-event multiplicity fluctuations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. It is shown that the observed non-monotonic behaviour of the scaled variance of multiplicity distribution as a function of collision centrality (such effect is not observed in a widely used string-hadronic models of nuclear collisions) can be fully explained by the correlations between produced particles promoting cluster formation. We define a cluster as a quasi-neutral gas of charged and neutral particles which exhibits collective behaviour. The characteristic space scale of this s…
A class of simple superposition models based on the Glauber picture of multiple collisions is compared with the data on the centrality dependence of the multiplicity distributions in a central rapidity bin. We show how the results depend on the specific assumptions concerning the distributions in the number of participants and their relations to the distributions of the number of produced hadrons in various phase space bins. None of the versions of the model describes satisfactorily the centrality dependence of the scaled dispersion.
Using the coalescence model we compute the multiplicity of $Z_{cs} (3985)^-$ (treated as a compact tetraquark) at the end of the quark gluon plasma phase in heavy ion collisions. Then we study the time evolution of this state in the hot hadron gas phase. We calculate the thermal cross sections for the collisions of the $Z_{cs} (3985)^-$ with light mesons using effective Lagrangians and form factors derived from QCD sum rules for the vertices $Z_{cs}\bar{D}_{s }^* D $ and $Z_{cs} \bar{D}_{s} D^{*}$. We solve the kinetic equation and find how the $Z_{cs} (3985)^-$ multiplicity is affected by the…
The recent PHENIX mid-rapidity measurements of multiplicity distributions for centrality bins are analyzed in the framework of superposition models. A simple superposition of pp events is shown to disagree with the heavy ion data for dispersion as a function of centrality. However, it is suggested that a model describing properly the pp data and based in the "wounded quark" idea may be compatible with the multiplicity data for heavy ion collisions.
A two-component (soft + hard) model (TCM) of hadron production in yields and spectra derived from the charge-multiplicity dependence of 200 GeV p-p collisions at the relativistic heavy ion collider (RHIC) is extended to describe p-p spectrum data from the large hadron collider (LHC) up to 13 TeV. The LHC data include spectrum ratios that provide only partial information on the TCM. The LHC ratio method is applied to well-understood 200 GeV spectrum data to derive an algebraic link between spectrum ratios and the full TCM. Some aspects of the form of the hard component on transverse momentum ar…
Multiplicity distributions and event-by-event multiplicity fluctuations in AuAu collisions at energies in future heavy-ion experiment at the Facility for Anti-proton and Ion Research (FAIR) are investigated. Events corresponding to FAIR energies are simulated in the frame work of Ultra Relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (URQMD) model. It is observed that the mean and the width of multiplicity distributions monotonically increase with beam energy. The trend of variations of dispersion with mean number of participating nucleons for the centrality-bin width of 5\% are in accord with the Cent…
Multi-pion correlations and wavepacket size effects on the pion multiplicity distribution, pion momentum distribution and two-pion interferometry are studied. It is shown that multi-pion Bose-Einstein correlations and the wavepacket size cause an abundance of pions at low momentum, increase the mean pion multiplicity and decrease both the apparent radius of the source and the coherent source parameter derived from two-pion interferometry.
I present a brief review of the existing models for particle multiplicity evaluation in heavy ion collisions which are at our disposal in the form of Monte Carlo simulators. Models are classified according to the physical mechanisms with which they try to describe the different stages of a high-energy collision between heavy nuclei. A comparison of predictions, as available at the beginning of year 2000, for multiplicities in central AuAu collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and PbPb collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is provided.
In this paper we study the dependence of Bose-Einstein correlations on the multiplicity of an event. We found that events with large multiplicity, stem from the production of several parton showers, while the additional production of small multiplicity in the central rapidity region (central diffraction), gives a negligible contribution due to emission of soft gluons, that leads to the Sudakov suppression of the exclusive production of two gluon jets. Hence, the Bose-Einstein correlation is the main source of the azimuthal angle correlations which generates $v_n$ with odd and even $n$. We foun…
Multipion production in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions is considered in the model of the pion radiation by classical current. Strong coherent effects of narrowing of pion longitudinal and transverse momenta distributions are predicted at the RHIC energy. The coherence enhances the large pseudorapidities producing the bump in the distribution. The growth of the average pion multiplicity and the oscillation effect in the multiplicity distribution are caused by the coherence as well.
We study the sensitivity of the higher-order moments of produced particle multiplicity distributions to the chemical freeze-out parameters in relativistic heavy ion collisions using the Hadron Resonance Gas (HRG) model. We compare the obtained sensitivity level to the one extracted from the ratios of particle yields. We find that, for certain final state hadrons, the fluctuation measurements add significant information to the determination of the hadro-chemical freeze-out properties of the deconfined phase of matter obtained at RHIC and the LHC.
By relating the charge multiplicity distribution and the temperature of a de-exciting nucleus through a deep neural network, we propose that the charge multiplicity distribution can be used as a thermometer of heavy-ion collisions. Based on an isospin-dependent quantum molecular dynamics model, we study the caloric curve of reaction $^{103}$Pd + $^9$Be with the apparent temperature determined through the charge multiplicity distribution. The caloric curve shows a characteristic signature of nuclear liquid-gas phase transition around the apparent temperature $T_{\rm ap}$ $=$ $6.4~\rm MeV$, whic…
We study the evolution of the doubly charmed state $T_{cc}^+$ in a hot hadron gas produced in the late stage of heavy-ion collisions. We use effective Lagrangians to calculate the thermally averaged cross sections of $T_{cc}^+$ production in reactions such as $ D^{(*)} D^{(*)} \rightarrow T_{cc}^+ π, T_{cc}^+ ρ$ and its absorption in the corresponding inverse processes. We then solve the rate equation to follow the time evolution of the $T_{cc}^+$ multiplicity, and determine how it is affected by the considered reactions during the expansion of the hadronic matter. We compare the evolution of …
Nuclear modification factor predicts whether a medium is formed in a collision system or not. One may verify, if scaling of momentum (transverse) distribution from heavy-ion systems with incoherent superposition of number of binary collision, is making up the magnitude of elementary like systems. It was observed in a wide range of experimental data that in lower momentum (transverse) region, initial state effects (viz. cold-nuclear matter effect or radial flow) enhances it. While in higher momentum (transverse) region, final state effects (viz. jet quenching or re-scattering effects) suppresse…
Time evolution of a "little bang" created in heavy ion collisions can be divided into two phases, the pre-equilibrium and hydrodynamic. At what moment the evolution becomes hydrodynamic and is there any universality in the hydrodynamic flow? To answer these questions we briefly discuss various versions of hydrodynamics and their applicability conditions. In particular, we elaborate on the idea of "universal" (all-order resumed) hydrodynamics and propose a simple new model for it. The model is motivated by results obtained recently via the AdS/CFT correspondence. Finally, charged hadron multipl…
The energy evolution of average multiplicities and multiplicity fluctuations in jets produced in heavy-ion collisions is investigated from a toy QCD-inspired model. In this model, we use modified splitting functions accounting for medium-enhanced radiation of gluons by a fast parton which propagates through the quark gluon plasma. The leading contribution of the standard production of soft hadrons is enhanced by a factor $\sqrt{N_s}$ while next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections are suppressed by $1/\sqrt{N_s}$, where the parameter $N_s>1$ accounts for the induced-soft gluons in the medium. Ou…
By deriving a general expression for multiplicity distribution (a conditional probability distribution) in statistical model, we demonstrate the mismatches between experimental measurements and previous theoretical calculations on multiplicity fluctuations. From the corrected formula, we develop an improved baseline measure for multiplicity distribution under Poisson approximation in statistical model to replace the traditional Poisson expectations. We find that the ratio of the mean multiplicity to the corresponding reference multiplicity are crucial to systemically explaining the measured sc…
Physics-informed neural network (PINN) modeling of charged particle multiplicity using the two-component framework in heavy-ion collisions: A comparison with data-driven neural networks
Recent RHIC results on eta' multiplicity in heavy-ion collisions are of great importance because they clearly signal a partial restoration of U_A(1) symmetry at high temperatures T, and thus provide an unambiguous signature of the formation of a new state of matter. Prompted by these experimental results of STAR and PHENIX collaborations, we discuss and propose the minimal generalization of the Witten-Veneziano relation to finite T.
I investigate the volume corrections on cumulants of total charge distributions and net proton distributions. The required volume information is generated by an optical Glauber model. I find that the corrected statistical expectations of multiplicity distributions mimic the negative binomial distributions at non-central collisions, and they tend to approach the Poisson ones at most-central collisions due to the "boundary effects," which suppress the volume corrections. However, net proton distributions and reference multiplicity distributions are sensitive to the external volume fluctuations a…
We report the higher order cumulants and their ratios for baryon, charge and strangeness multiplicity in canonical and grand-canonical ensembles in ideal thermal model including all the resonances. When the number of conserved quanta is small, an explicit treatment of these conserved charges is required, which leads to a canonical description of the system and the fluctuations are significantly different from the grand canonical ensemble. Cumulant ratios of total charge and net-charge multiplicity as a function of collision energies are also compared in grand canonical ensemble.
The charged-particle multiplicity distribution and the transverse-energy distribution measured in heavy-ion collisions at top RHIC and LHC energies are described using the two-component model approach based on a convolution of the Monte Carlo Glauber model with the Weibull model for particle production. The model successfully describes the multiplicity and transverse-energy distribution of minimum-bias collision data for a wide range of energies. The Weibull-Glauber model can be used to determine the centrality classes in heavy-ion collisions as an alternative to the conventional negative bino…
ANN model is used to estimate the multiplicity per rapidity for charged pions and kaons observed in various high-energy experiments from central Au+Au collisions with energies ranging from 2-200 GeV, and then compared to available experimental data, including RHIC-BRAHMS, and the future facilities at NICA and FAIR. We also used Landau hydrodynamical approach, which has a better describtion for the evolution of hot and dense matter produced in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The approach is fitted to both results estimated from experiment and ANN simulation. We noticed that the Landau …
In the framework of the Schwinger Model for percolating strings we establish a general relation between multiplicity and transverse momentum square distributions in hadron-hadron and heavy ion collisions. Some of our results agree with the Colour Glass Condensate model.
The initial gluon multiplicity per unit area per unit rapidity, dN/L^2/dη, in high energy nuclear collisions, is equal to f_N (g^2μL) (g^2μ)^2/g^2, with μ^2 proportional to the gluon density per unit area of the colliding nuclei. For an SU(2) gauge theory, we compute f_N (g^2μL)=0.14\pm 0.01 for a wide range in g^2μL. Extrapolating to SU(3), we predict dN/L^2/dηfor values of g^2μL in the range relevant to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider. We compute the initial gluon transverse momentum distribution, dN/L^2/d^2 k_\perp, and show it to be well behaved at low k_\…
We investigate two- and three-particle intensity correlation functions of pions in relativistic heavy ion collisions for different colliding energies. Based on three models of particle production, we analyze the degree to which the pion sources are chaotic in the SPS S+Pb, Pb+Pb and the RHIC Au+Au collisions. The ``chaoticity'', $λ$, of the two-particle correlation functions is corrected for long-lived resonance decays. The effect of the partial Coulomb correction is also examined. Although the partially coherent model gives a result which is consistent with that of STAR, the chaotic fraction …
In this paper, we propose a parameterization which is based on a phenomenological model involving the wounded quarks interactions for explaining the average charged particle multiplicity $\ < n_{ch}\ >$, the central pseudo-rapidity density $\ < (dn/dη)_{η=0}\ >$ and complete rapidity dependence of $dn/dη$ in relativistic heavy-ion collider experiments. The model also interrelates nucleus-nucleus (A-A) collisions with p-A and p-p interactions. Our parameterization rests on simple assumptions regarding mean number of participating quarks and their average number of collisions. The results for $\…
The present article reviews facts and problems concerning charge hadron production in high energy collisions. Main emphasis is laid on the qualitative and quantitative description of general characteristics and properties observed for charged hadrons produced in such high energy collisions. Various features of available experimental data e.g., the variations of charged hadron multiplicity and pseudo-rapidity density with the mass number of colliding nuclei, center-of-mass energies and the collision centrality obtained from heavy-ion collider experiments are interpreted in the context of variou…
Atomic number ($A$) and energy ($\roots$) scaling exponents of multiplicity and transverse energy in heavy ion collisions are analytically derived in the perturbative QCD + saturation model. The exponents depend on the small-$x$ behaviour of gluon distribution functions at an $x$-dependent scale. The relation between initial state and final state saturation is also discussed.
The results concerning the $e^+e^-$ production in peripheral highly relativistic heavy-ion collisions presented in a recent paper by Baltz {\em{et al.}} are rederived in a very straightforward manner. It is shown that the solution of the Dirac equation directly leads to the multiplicity, i.e. to the total number of electron-positron pairs produced by the electromagnetic field of the ions, whereas the calculation of the single pair production probability is much more involved. A critical observation concerns the unsolved problem of seemingly absent Coulomb corrections (Bethe-Maximon corrections…
Long range correlations multiplicity-multiplicity, $p_T^2$-multiplicity and $p^2 - p^2_T$ are studied in the percolating colour string picture under different assumptions of the dynamics of string interaction. It is found that the strength of these correlations is rather insensitive to these assumptions nor to the geometry of formed fused string clusters. Both multiplicity-multiplicity and $p_T^2$-multiplicity correlations are found to scale and depend only on the string density. The $p_T^2$-multiplicity correlations, which are absent in the independent string picture, are found to be of the o…
Global variables such as the transverse energy and the charged particle multiplicity and their ratio are evaluated, in a statistical model with expansion, for heavy-ion collisions from AGS to RHIC at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV. Full description of decays of hadron resonances is applied. The predictions of the model done at the freeze-out parameters established independently from observed particle yields and $p_{T}$ spectra agree well with the experimental data. However, some (explicable) overestimation of the ratio has been found.
Transverse momentum distributions in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions carry considerable information about the dynamics of the hot system produced. Direct comparison with the same spectra from $p+p$ collisions has proven invaluable to identify novel features associated with the larger system, in particular, the "jet quenching" at high momentum and apparently much stronger collective flow dominating the spectral shape at low momentum. We point out possible hazards of ignoring conservation laws in the comparison of high- and low-multiplicity final states. We argue that the effects of ener…
Event-by-event fluctuations and correlations between particles produced in relativistic nuclear collisions are studied. The fluctuations in positive, negative, total and net charge are closely related through correlations. In the event of a phase transitions to a quark-gluon plasma, fluctuations in total and net charge can be enhanced and reduced respectively which, however, is very sensitive to the acceptance and centrality. If the colliding system experiences strong density fluctuations due, e.g., to droplet formation in a first-order phase transition, all fluctuations can be enhanced substa…
Multiple Reflection Expansion (MRE) formalism has been applied to hadron resonance gas (HRG) model to study the finite-size effect on thermodynamics of small systems of hadron gas at the chemical freeze-out temperature in high-multiplicity events of proton-proton (pp) colisions at the LHC. Comparison with larger systems of heavy-ion (AA) collisions helps in undersanding the usefulness of the effect on small systems. Thermodynamic properties of these systems at the chemical freeze-out, with and without system-size effect, are contrasted with those for infinite hadronic phase of strongly interac…
We investigate the measurement of the sixth order cumulant and its ratio to the second order cumulant ($C_6/C_2$) in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The influence of statistics and different methods of centrality bin width correction on $C_6/C_2$ of net-proton multiplicity distributions is demonstrated. There is no satisfactory method to extract $C_6/C_2$ with the current statistics recorded at lower energies by STAR at RHIC. With statistics comparable to the expected statistics at the planned future RHIC Beam Energy Scan II (BES II), no energy dependence of $C_6/C_2$ is observed in central…
We studied the centrality selection effect on cumulants (up to fourth order) and the cumulants ratios of net-proton multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 7.7, 19.6 and 200 GeV from UrQMD model. The net-proton cumulants are calculated with collision centralities by using charged particle multiplicity from different pesudorapidity ($η$) region. By comparing the results from various collision centralities, we found that the autocorrelation effects are not significant in the results with collision centralities "refmult-3" and "refmult-2", which are using mid-…
Multi-pion correlation effect on the source distribution is studied. It is shown that multi-pion Bose-Einstein correlation make the average radius of the pion source become smaller. The isospin effect on the pion multiplicity distribution and the source distribution is also discussed.
Multiplicity distributions of charged particles and their event-by-event fluctuations have been compiled for relativistic heavy-ion collisions from the available experimental data at Brookhaven National Laboratory and CERN and also by the use of an event generator. Multiplicity fluctuations are sensitive to QCD phase transition and to the presence of critical point in the QCD phase diagram. In addition, multiplicity fluctuations provide baselines for other event-by-event measurements. Multiplicity fluctuation expressed in terms of the scaled variance of the multiplicity distribution is an inte…
The evolution of multiplicity distribution of a species which undergoes chemical reactions can be described with the help of a master equation. We study the master equation for a fixed temperature, because we want to know how fast different moments of the multiplicity distribution approach their equilibrium value. We particularly look at the 3rd and 4th factorial moments and their equilibrium values from which central moments, cumulants and their ratios can be calculated. Then we study the situation in which the temperature of the system decreases. We find out that in the non-equilibrium state…
We discuss recently measured event-by-event multiplicity fluctuations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. It is shown that the non-monotonic behavior of the multiplicity fluctuations as a function of collision centrality can be fully explained by the correlations between produced particles.
We review the charged particle and photon multiplicity, and transverse energy production in heavy-ion collisions starting from few GeV to TeV energies. The experimental results of pseudorapidity distribution of charged particles and photons at different collision energies and centralities are discussed. We also discuss the hypothesis of limiting fragmentation and expansion dynamics using the Landau hydrodynamics and the underlying physics. Meanwhile, we present the estimation of initial energy density multiplied with formation time as a function of different collision energies and centralities…
Hadronic resonances, having very short lifetime, like $\rm{K}^{*0}$, can act as useful probes to understand and estimate lifetime of hadronic phase in ultra-relativistic proton-proton, p--Pb and heavy-ion collisions. Resonances with relatively longer lifetime, like $ϕ$ meson, can serve as a tool to locate the QGP phase boundary. We estimate a lower limit of hadronic phase lifetime in Cu--Cu and Au--Au collisions at RHIC, and in pp, p--Pb and Pb--Pb collisions at different LHC collision energies. Also, we obtain the effective temperature of $ϕ$ meson using Boltzmann-Gibbs Blast-Wave function, w…
In heavy-ion ({\it A-A}) collisions, the correlations among the particles produced across wide range in rapidity, probe the early stages of the reaction. The analyses of forward-backward multiplicity correlations in these collisions are complicated by several effects, which are absent or minimized in hadron-hadron collisions. This includes effects, such as the centrality selection in the {\it A-A} collisions, which interfere with the measurement of the dynamical correlations. A method, which takes into account the fluctuations in centrality selection, has been utilized to determine the forward…
Using the nucleon coalescence model based on kinetic freeze-out nucleons from the 3D MUSIC+UrQMD and the 2D VISHNU hybrid model with a crossover equation of state, we study the multiplicity dependence of deuteron ($d$) and triton ($t$) production from central to peripheral Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=$ 7.7, 14.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4 and 200 GeV and Pb+Pb at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=2.76$ TeV, respectively. It is found that the ratio $N_t N_p/N_d^2$ of the proton yield $N_p$, deuteron yield $N_d$ and triton yield $N_t$ exhibits a scaling behavior in its multiplicity dependence, i.e., …
High-luminosity modern accelerators, like the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, inherently have event pile-up scenarios which significantly contribute to physics events as a background. While state-of-the-art tracking algorithms and detector concepts take care of these event pile-up scenarios, several offline analytical techniques are used to remove such events from the physics analysis. It is still difficult to identify the remaining pile-up events in an event sample for physics analysis. Since the fraction of these events is significantly …
We present a realistic expanding source model with nine parameters that are necessary and sufficient to describe the main physics occuring during hydrodynamical freezeout of the excited hadronic matter produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. As a first test of the model, we compare it to data from central Si + Au collisions at p_lab/A = 14.6 GeV/c measured in experiment E-802 at the AGS. An overall chi-square per degree of freedom of 1.055 is achieved for a fit to 1416 data points involving invariant pi^+, pi^-, K^+, and K^- one-particle multiplicity distributions and pi^+ and K^+ two-p…
The recently proposed participant dissipating effective-energy approach is applied to describe the dependence on centrality of the multiplicity of charged particles measured in heavy-ion collisions at the collision energies up to the highest LHC energy of 5 TeV. The effective-energy approach relates multihadron production in different types of collisions, by combining, under the proper collision energy scaling, the constituent quark picture with Landau relativistic hydrodynamics. The measurements are shown to be well described in terms of the centrality-dependent effective energy of participan…
Entropy, dimensions and other multifractal characteristics of multiplicity distributions of relativistic charged hadrons produced in ion-ion collisions at SPS energies are investigated. The analysis of the experimental data is carried out in terms of phase space bin-size dependence of multiplicity distributions following the Takagi's approach. Yet another method is also followed to study the multifractality which, is not related to the bin-width and (or) the detector resolution, rather involves multiplicity distribution of charged particles in full phase space in terms of information entropy a…
We compute transverse momentum and momentum integrated multiplicity distributions consistently in the IP-Glasma model for proton-proton and proton-lead collisions at the LHC, in deuteron-gold collisions at RHIC, and in heavy ion collisions at both RHIC and LHC energies. Several sources of sub-nucleon scale contributions to the multiplicity distributions are identified. Our results, which are constrained by inclusive and diffractive deeply inelastic scattering data from HERA, are compared to measured distributions for a range of collision energies. These results are an essential first step in q…
Bayesian inference of event-by-event collision geometry from charged-particle multiplicity in heavy-ion collisions
State Key Laboratory of Heavy Ion Science and Technology, Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院近代物理研究所重离子物理与技术国家重点实验室）；Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Ion-beam Application (MOE) & Institute of Modern Physics, Fudan University（复旦大学核物理与离子束应用教育部重点实验室、近代物理研究所）；Shanghai Research Center for Theoretical Nuclear Physics, NSFC and Fudan University（国家自然科学基金委与复旦大学理论核物理联合研究中心）；Key Laboratory of Quark and Lepton Physics (MOE) & Institute of Particle Physics, Central China Normal University（华中师范大学夸克与轻子物理教育部重点实验室、粒子物理研究所）；University of Heidelberg（海德堡大学）
The study of multiparticle correlations and collectivity in the hot and dense matter created in collisions of heavy-ions as well as those of smaller systems such as proton--heavy-ion collisions has progressed to the point where detailed knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of the proton is needed to confront experimental data. We discuss results from a simple proof-of-principle initial state parton model which reproduces many features of the data on proton--heavy-ion collisions that are often ascribed to hydrodynamic flow. We outline how this model can be further improved with particul…
We show, under general assumptions which are well satisfied in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, that the geometric relation of centrality c to the impact parameter b, namely c ~ pi b^2/sigma_inel, holds to a very high accuracy for all but most peripheral collisions. More precisely, if c(N) is the centrality of events with the multiplicity higer than N, then b is the value of the impact parameter for which the average multiplicity <n(b)> is equal to N. The corrections to this geometric formula are of the order (Delta n(b)/<n(b)>)^2, where Delta n(b) is the width of the multiplicity distributi…
