The azimuthal correlations between local flow planes at different (pseudo)rapidities ($η$) may reveal important details of the initial nuclear matter density distributions in heavy-ion collisions. Extensive experimental measurements of a factorization ratio ($r_2$) and its derivative ($F_2$) have shown evidence of the longitudinal flow-plane decorrelation. However, nonflow effects also affect this observable and prevent a quantitative understanding of the phenomenon. In this paper, to distinguish decorrelation and nonflow effects, we propose a new cumulant observable, $T_2$, which largely suppresses nonflow. The technique sensitivity to different initial-state scenarios and nonflow effects are tested with a simple Monte Carlo model, and in the end, the method is applied to events simulated by a multiphase transport model (AMPT) for Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} =200$ GeV. We also emphasize that a distinct decorrelation signal requires not only the right sign of an observable, but also its proper dependence on the $η$-window of the reference flow plane, to be consistent with the pertinent decorrelation picture.
Measurement of the longitudinal flow-plane decorrelation using multi-plane cumulants in $\sqrt{s_{_{\mathrm{NN}}}}$ = 200 GeV Au+Au, Ru+Ru, and Zr+Zr collisions
We present the first calculation of longitudinal decorrelation of anisotropic flow at RHIC Beam Energy Scan (BES) energies using event-by-event viscous hydrodynamic model (vHLLE), with two different initial states (GLISSANDO2 and UrQMD) and hadronic cascade. We investigate the origin of the observed decorrelation by checking separately flow angle and flow magnitude decorrelation and by calculating decorrelation in the initial state eccentricity.
The centrality or the number of initial-state sources $V$ of the system produced in heavy ion collision is a concept that is not uniquely defined and subject to significant theoretical and experimental uncertainties. We argue that a more robust connection between the initial-state sources with final-state multiplicity could be established from the event-by-event multiplicity correlation between two subevents separated in pseudorapidity, $N_a$ vs $N_b$. This correlation is sensitive to two main types of centrality fluctuations (CF): 1) particle production for each source $p(n)$ which smears the…
We study the longitudinal decorrelations of elliptic, triangular and quadrangular flows in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and RHIC energies. The event-by-event CLVisc (3+1)-dimensional hydrodynamics model, combined with the fully fluctuating AMPT initial conditions, is utilized to simulate the space-time evolution of the strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma. Detailed analysis is performed for the longitudinal decorrelations of flow vectors, flow magnitudes and flow orientations. We find strong correlations between final-state longitudinal decorrelations of anisotropic flows and initial-state l…
Within A Multi-Phase Transport model, we investigate decorrelation of event planes over pseudorapidity and its effect on azimuthal anisotropy measurements in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The decorrelation increases with increasing η gap between particles used to reconstruct the event planes. The third harmonic event planes are found even anticorrelated between forward and backward rapidities, the source of which may root in the opposite orientation of the collision geometry triangularities. The decorrelation may call into question the anisotropic flow measurements with pseudorapidity gap…
In heavy-ion collisions, the harmonic flow $V_n$ of final-state particles are driven by the eccentricity vector ${\mathcal{E}}_n$ that describe the shape of the initial fireball projected in the transverse plane. It is realized recently that the structure and shape of the fireball, and consequently the ${\mathcal{E}}_n$, fluctuate in pseudorapidity $η$ in a single event, ${\mathcal{E}}_n(η)$. This leads to eccentricity decorrelation between different $η$, driving the longitudinal flow decorrelations observed in the experiments. Using a Glauber model with a paramerterized longitudinal structure…
Decorrelation of the elliptic flow in rapidity is calculated within a hybrid approach which includes event-by-event viscous fluid dynamics and final state hadronic cascade model. The simulations are performed for Au+Au collisions at center-of-mass collision energies of 27 and 200 GeV per nucleon pair, as well as various colliding systems at 72 GeV per nucleon pair. Initial conditions determined by an extended Monte Carlo Glauber model show better agreement with experimental data than initial conditions from the UrQMD transport model. We show how the observed decorrelation is connected with the…
An "event-shape twist" technique is proposed to study the longitudinal dynamics of harmonic flow, in particular the effects of rapidity fluctuation and event-plane decorrelation. This technique can distinguish between two types of rapidity decorrelation effects: a systematic rotation versus a random fluctuation of flow angles along the rapidity direction. The technique is demonstrated and the magnitude of the two decorrelation effects is predicted using the AMPT model via a single particle analysis and two-particle correlation analysis. An observed decorrelation can be attributed to a systemat…
The collective harmonic flow in heavy-ion collisions correlates particles at all transverse momenta to be emitted preferably some directions. The factorization breaking coefficient measures the small decorrelation of the flow harmonics at two different transverse momenta. Using the hydrodynamic model I study in details the decorrelation of the harmonic flow due to the flow angle and the flow magnitude decorrelation at two transverse momenta. The effect can be seen in experiment measuring factorization breaking coefficients for the square of the harmonic flow vector at two transverse momenta. T…
Measurements of longitudinal flow decorrelations for charged particles are presented in the pseudorapidity range $|η| < 1$ using a reference detector at 2.1 $< |η_{\mathrm{ref}}| <$ 5.1 in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 27 GeV by STAR. The flow decorrelation for $v_2$ shows a strong centrality dependence, while a weak centrality dependence for $v_3$. Results are compared with the results in Au+Au collisions at 200 GeV as a function of $η$ scaled by beam-rapidity, i.e. $η/y_{beam}$. No energy dependence is observed for $v_2$ decorrelation, but clear energy dependence for $v_3$ decorrelat…
We have studied the effect of limited statistics of data on measurement of the different order of cumulants of net-proton distribution assuming that the proton and antiproton distributions follow Possionian and Binomial distributions with initial parameters determined from experimental results for two top center of mass energies ($\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=200$ and $62.4$ GeV) in most central ($0-5$%) Au$+$Au collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). In this simulation, we observe that the central values for higher order cumulants have a strong dependence on event sample size and due …
We calculate the longitudinal flow decorrelation coefficients, i.e., $r_n(η,η_r)$ for $n=2,3$, in the presence of hydro-like flow and the global momentum conservation (GMC) constraint. The longitudinal flow decorrelation is weakened due to the GMC constraint. The GMC effect is sensitive to the total number of particles involved in GMC, the average longitudinal momentum, the transverse momentum, and the reference pseudorapidity. Our results of the $r_2(η,η_{rA})/r_2(η,η_{rB})$ ratio between two reference pseudorapidity bins are consistent with the experimental measurements. We predict that the …
The first measurement of longitudinal decorrelations of harmonic flow amplitudes $v_n$ for $n=2$, 3 and 4 in Xe+Xe collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.44$ TeV is obtained using 3 $μ\textrm{b}^{-1}$ of data with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The decorrelation signal for $v_3$ and $v_4$ is found to be nearly independent of collision centrality and transverse momentum ($p_{\mathrm{T}}$) requirements on final-state particles, but for $v_2$ a strong centrality and $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ dependence is seen. When compared with the results from Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.02$ TeV, the…
With the help of transport and statistical models, we find that the ratios of higher net-proton cumulants measured at RHIC are dominated by the statistical fluctuations. Future measurements should focus on the dynamical fluctuations, which are relevant to the underlying mechanisms of particle production, the critical phenomena in particular. We also demonstrate that a proton-antiproton correlation directly show if protons and antiprotons are emitted independently.
We discuss properties and applications of factorial cumulants of various particle numbers and for their mixed channels measured by the event-by-event analysis in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. After defining the factorial cumulants for systems with multi-particle species, their properties are elucidated. The uses of the factorial cumulants in the study of critical fluctuations are discussed. We point out that factorial cumulants play useful roles in understanding fluctuation observables when they have underlying physics approximately described by the binomial distribution. As examples, we …
In the RHIC Beam Energy Scan program, gold nuclei are collided with different collision energies in the range from few to 62.4 GeV. The goals of the program are to explore the onset of QGP creation, locate the critical point of QCD and study dense baryon matter. We report on the first application of Monte Carlo Glauber (GLISSANDO2) and T$_{\rm R}$ENTo $p=0$ initial states extended to 3D for event-by-event viscous fluid dynamic (vHLLE) with hadronic cascade modelling of Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}=27$ and 62.4 GeV, which is the upper region of RHIC BES energies. The initial states…
Harmonic flow in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is observed in a broad range of rapidities, and the flow at different rapidities is correlated. However, fluctuations lead to a small decorrelation of the harmonic flow magnitudes and flow angles at different rapidities. Using a hydrodynamic model with Glauber Monte Carlo initial conditions we show that the flow angle decorrelation strongly depends on the flow magnitude in the event. We propose observables to measure this effect in experiment.
In these proceedings, we present the higher-order cumulants of proton multiplicity distributions of the fixed-target (FXT) run in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 3.0 GeV. The cumulant ratios are presented as a function of centrality and collision energy. The proton cumulant ratio C4/C2 is consistent with fluctuations driven by baryon number conservation and indicates an energy regime dominated by hadronic interactions. These data imply that the QCD critical point could exist at energies higher than 3 GeV if created in heavy-ion collisions.
We study the effects of correlations on cumulants and their ratios of net-proton multiplicity distributions which have been measured for central (0\%-5\%) Au + Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). This effect has been studied assuming individual proton and anti-proton distributions as a Poisson or Negative Binomial Distribution (NBD). In-spite of significantly correlated production due to baryon number, electric charge conservation and kinematical correlations of protons and anti-protons, the measured cumulants of the net-proton distribution follow the independent produ…
We perform a systematic study on the effect of non-uniform track efficiency correction in higher-order cumulant analysis in heavy-ion collisions. Through analytical derivation, we find that the true values of cumulants can be successfully reproduced by the efficiency correction with an average of the realistic detector efficiency for particles with the same charges within each single phase space. The theoretical conclusions are supported by a toy model simulation by tuning the non-uniformity of the efficiency employed in the track-by-track efficiency correction method. The valid averaged effic…
We investigate the effect of the global charge conservation on the cumulants of conserved charges observed in relativistic heavy ion collisions in a finite rapidity window, $Δη$, with a special emphasis on the time evolution of fluctuations in the hadronic medium. It is argued that the experimental result of the net-electric charge fluctuation observed by ALICE does not receive effects from the global charge conservation, because of the finite diffusion distance of charged particles in the hadronic stage. We emphasize that the magnitude of the effect of the global charge conservation can be es…
Higher-order cumulants of conserved charge distributions are sensitive observables to probe the critical fluctuations near QCD critical point in heavy-ion collisions. Due to high interaction rate, pileup event can be one of the major sources of background in the measurements of higher-order cumulants. In this paper, we studied the effects of pileup events on higher-order cumulants of proton multiplicity distributions using UrQMD model. It is found that the proposed pileup correction fails if the correction parameters are determined by the Glauber fitting of charged particle multiplicities, whi…
The multiplicity percentile dependence of cumulants, of net-proton number distributions in Au$-$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = $ 200 GeV and Pb$-$Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = $ 2.76 TeV has been investigated using the Angantyr model (the heavy-ion extension of the \textsc{Pythia 8} model). The effects of finite transverse momentum ($p_{\mathrm T}$) and pseudorapidity ($η$) acceptance on the net-proton cumulants have also been studied. Furthermore, the effects of the hydrodynamic expansion and feed down from weak decays were explored. It was found that radial flow has substantial impact…
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-…
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 perform a systematic study on the decorrelation of anisotropic flows along the pseudorapidity in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and RHIC energies. The dynamical evolution of the QGP fireball is simulated via the CLVisc (ideal) (3+1)-dimensional hydrodynamics model, with the fully fluctuating initial condition from A-Multi-Phase-Transport (AMPT) model. Detailed analysis is performed on the longitudinal decorrelations of elliptic, triangular and quadrangular flows in terms of flow vectors, flow magnitudes and flow orientations (event planes). It is found that pure flow magnitude…
Binder liked ratios of baryon number are firstly suggested in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Using 3D-Ising model, the critical behavior of Binder ratios and ratios of high order cumulants of order parameter are fully presented. Binder ratio is shown to be a step function of temperature. The critical point is the intersection of the ratios of different system sizes between two platforms. From low to high temperature through the critical point, the ratios of third order cumulants change their values from negative to positive in a valley shape, and ratios of fourth order cumulants oscillate …
We investigate the time evolution of higher order cumulants of conserved charges in a volume with the diffusion master equation. Applying the result to the diffusion of non-Gaussian fluctuations in the hadronic stage of relativistic heavy ion collisions, we show that the fourth-order cumulant of net-electric charge at LHC energy is suppressed compared with the recently observed second-order cumulant at ALICE, if the higher order cumulants at hadronization are suppressed compared with their values in the hadron phase in equilibrium. The significance of the experimental information on the rapidi…
Measurements of azimuthal angular correlations are presented for high-multiplicity pPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=$ 5.02 TeV and peripheral PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=$ 2.76 TeV. The data used in this work were collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. Fourier coefficients as functions of transverse momentum and pseudorapidity are studied using the scalar product method, 4-, 6-, and 8-particle cumulants, and the Lee-Yang zeros technique. The influence of event plane decorrelation is evaluated using the scalar product method and found to account for most of the obs…
The individual studies of the anisotropic flow vector, flow angle and flow magnitude fluctuations with multi-particle correlations provide insight into the initial conditions and properties of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. Recent measurements of these fluctuations have been available and the comparison to hydrodynamic models shows unique sensitivities to the initial conditions of the system, but also a puzzling dependence on the specific shear viscosity $η/s$. In this paper, a systematic study with A Multi-Phase Transport (AMPT) model using different…
A series of new flow observables mixed harmonic multi-particle cumulants (MHC), which allow for the first time to quantify the correlations strength between different order of flow coefficients with various moments, was investigated using hydrodynamic model. These new observables are constructed based on multi-particle cumulants, and thus by design will be less sensitive to the non-flow contaminations. In addition to the previous study of correlation involving two flow coefficients with their second moments, both correlations of three flow coefficients and the correlations of higher order mome…
The latest measurements of collective behaviour in a variety of collision systems with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, including pp collisions at 13 TeV, Xe+Xe collisions at 5.44 TeV, and Pb+Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV, are presented. They include vn-[pT] correlations, which carry important information about the initial-state geometry of the quark-gluon plasma and can shed light on any quadrupole deformation in the Xe nucleus, and measurements of flow decorrelations differential in rapidity, which probe the longitudinal structure of the colliding system. These measurements furthermore provide str…
Baryon number cumulants are invaluable tools to diagnose the primordial stage of heavy ion collisions if they can be measured. In experiments, however, proton number cumulants have been measured as substitutes. In fact, proton number fluctuations are further modified in the hadron phase and different from those of baryon number. We show that the isospin distribution of nucleons at kinetic freezeout is binomial and factorized. This leads to formulas that express the baryon number cumulants sorely in terms of proron number fluctuations, which are experimentally observable.
Fluctuations of conserved quantities, such as baryon, electric charge and strangeness number, are sensitive observables in heavy-ion collisions to search for the QCD phase transition and critical point. In this paper, we performed a systematical analysis on the various cumulants and cumulant ratios of event-by-event net-strangeness distributions in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4 and 200 GeV from UrQMD model. We performed a systematical study on the contributions from various strange baryons and mesons to the net-strangeness fluctuations. The results demonstra…
Cumulants of baryon number are given considerable attention in analyses of heavy-ion collision experiments as possible signatures of the QCD critical point. In this work, we show that the values of the lowest three cumulants can also be utilized to recover information about the isothermal speed of sound and its logarithmic derivative with respect to the baryon number density. This result provides a new method for obtaining information about fundamental properties of nuclear matter studied in heavy-ion collisions, with consequences for both the search for the QCD critical point and neutron star…
Higher-order cumulants of the distributions of conserved charges, such as net-baryon number, are sensitive to the quantum chromodynamics(QCD) phase transition and the QCD critical point. We calculate the cumulants and correlation functions of proton, antiproton, and net-proton multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 7.7$ GeV using a multiphase transport model(AMPT). The AMPT model can basically describe the trends of cumulants, cumulant ratios, (normalized) correlation functions of the proton and net-proton measured by the STAR experiment. The multiproton (baryon) co…
Fluctuations of the baryon number in relativistic heavy-ion collisions are a promising observable to explore the structure of the QCD phase diagram. The cumulant ratios in heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies ($\sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}} < 7$ GeV) have not been studied to date. We investigate the effects of mean field potential and clustering on the cumulant ratios of baryon and proton number distributions in Au+Au collisions at beam energy of 1.23 GeV$/$nucleon as measured by the HADES Collaboration at GSI. Ultrarelativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) and the JAM model are used t…
Recently studies of the differential nature of the flow angle fluctuations, known as event plane angular decorrelation, indicated that measurements that assume a common symmetry plane may need to consider the flow angle fluctuations effect. Using the HIJING and AMPT models, it is shown that the flow angle fluctuations measurements, obtained with the two- and three-subevents correlation method, could have significant non-flow effects associated with long- and short-range non-flow correlations. The current study demonstrates the four-subevents cumulant methods' ability to reduce the non-flow eff…
We calculate the cumulants and correlation functions of net-kaon multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 7.7$ GeV using a multiphase transport model (AMPT) with both a new coalescence mechanism and all charge conservation laws. The AMPT model can qualitatively describe the centrality dependences of the net-kaon cumulants and cumulant ratios measured by the STAR experiment. By focusing on the stage evolution of the cumulants, cumulant ratios, and correlation functions, we reveal several key effects on the fluctuations and correlations of strangeness during the dynamic…
Unveiling the shape of the $^{20}$Ne nucleus by measuring the flow coefficients with cumulants in PbNe and PbAr collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 70.9$ GeV
Fluctuations of conserved quantities are sensitive observables to probe the signature of QCD phase transition and critical point in heavy-ion collisions. With the UrQMD model, we have studied the centrality and energy dependence of various order cumulants and cumulant ratios (up to fourth order) of net-proton,net-charge and net-kaon multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$= 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4, 200 GeV. The model results show that the production mechanism of the particles and anti-particles have significant impacts on the cumulants of net-particles multiplici…
