Reconstruction of baryon number distributions

Abstract

The maximum entropy method (MEM) and the Gaussian process (GP) regression, which are both well-suited for the treatment of inverse problems, are used to reconstruct net-baryon number distributions based on a finite number of cumulants of the distribution. Baryon number distributions across the chiral phase transition are reconstructed. It is found that with the increase of the order of cumulants, distribution in the long tails, i.e., far away from the central number, would become more and more important. We also reconstruct the distribution function based on the experimentally measured cumulants at the collision energy $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=7.7$ GeV. Given the sizable error of the fourth-order cumulant measured in experiments, the calculation of MEM shows that with the increasing fourth-order cumulant, there is another peak in the distribution function developed in the region of large baryon number. This unnaturalness observed in the reconstructed distribution function might in turn be used to constrain the cumulants measured in experiments.