arXiv subjects

Jean-Yves Ollitrault

Publications and source records attributed to Jean-Yves Ollitrault.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

$p_T$-Dependent Particle Number Fluctuations From Principal Component Analyses in Hydrodynamic Simulations of Heavy-Ion Collisions

We carry out a principal component analysis of fluctuations in a hydrodynamic simulation of heavy-ion collisions, and compare with experimental data from the CMS collaboration. The leading and subleading principal components of elliptic and triangular flow reproduce the trends seen in data. By contrast, the principal components of multiplicity fluctuations show an interesting difference in their $p_T$ dependence for simulations compared to experimental data. Specifically, the leading component increases with $p_T$ in hydrodynamics, while it is constant in experiment. In order to understand how the leading and subleading modes arise, we construct a toy model where the principal components have a simple analytic form. We show how the PCA components depend on fluctuations of the average transverse momentum and of the total multiplicity, as well as correlations between the two, and we verify that hydrodynamic simulations agree with the predictions of the toy model. The difference in the momentum trend is likely due to the fact that hydrodynamic models typically have transverse momentum fluctuations that are larger than seen experimentally.

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arXiv2019

Evolution of fluctuations in the initial state of heavy-ion collisions from RHIC to LHC

Fluctuations in the initial state of heavy-ion collisions are larger at RHIC energy than at LHC energy. This fact can be inferred from recent measurements of the fluctuations of the particle multiplicities and of elliptic flow performed at the two different energies. We show that an analytical description of the initial energy-density field and its fluctuations motivated by the color glass condensate (CGC) effective theory predicts and quantitatively captures the measured energy evolution of these observables. The crucial feature is that fluctuations in the CGC scale like the inverse of the saturation scale of the nuclei.

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arXiv2019

Primordial non-Gaussianity in heavy-ion collisions

We show that experimental data on cumulants of anisotropic flow in heavy-ion collisions probe the non-Gaussian statistics of the energy density field created right after the collision. We carry out a perturbative expansion of the initial anisotropies of the system in terms of its density fluctuations. We argue that the correlation between the magnitudes of elliptic flow and triangular flow, dubbed $sc(3,2)$, is generically of the same sign and order of magnitude as the kurtosis of triangular flow in a hydrodynamic picture. The experimental observation that these quantities are negative implies that the distribution of energy around a given point has positive skew.

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arXiv2019

Primordial fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions

We present a simple description of the energy density profile created in a nucleus-nucleus collision, motivated by high-energy QCD. The energy density is modeled as the sum of contributions coming from elementary collisions between localized charges and a smooth nucleus. Each of these interactions creates a sharply-peaked source of energy density falling off at large distances like $1/r^2$, corresponding to the two-dimensional Coulomb field of a point charge. Our model reproduces the one-point and two-point functions of the energy density field calculated in the framework of the color glass condensate effective theory, to leading logarithmic accuracy. We apply it to the description of eccentricity fluctuations. Unlike other existing models of initial conditions for heavy-ion collisions, it allows us to reproduce simultaneously the centrality dependence of elliptic and triangular flow.

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arXiv2019

New paradigm for fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions

Since their discovery, fluctuations in the initial state of heavy-ion collisions have been understood as originating mostly from the random positions of nucleons within the colliding nuclei. We consider an alternative approach where all the focus is on fluctuations generated by QCD interactions, that we evaluate at leading logarithmic accuracy in the color glass condensate effective theory. We validate our approach using BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data on anisotropic flow. In particular, we show that, compared to standard Glauber-inspired calculations, our formalism provides a better description of the centrality dependence of the ratio of elliptic flow and triangular flow. It also naturally explains the evolution of elliptic flow fluctuations between RHIC and LHC energies.

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arXiv2019

Relating eccentricity fluctuations to density fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions

The magnitude of anisotropic flow in a nucleus-nucleus collision is determined by the energy density field, $ρ(x,y,z)$, created right after the collision occurs. Specifically, elliptic flow, $v_2$, and triangular flow, $v_3$, are proportional to the anisotropy coefficients $\varepsilon_2$ and $\varepsilon_3$, which are functionals of $ρ$. We express the mean and the variance of $\varepsilon_2$ and $\varepsilon_3$ as a function of the 1- and 2-point functions of $ρ$. These results generalize results obtained previously, that were valid only for central collisions, or only for identical point-like sources. We apply them to the color glass condensate effective theory, using the recently derived expression of the 2-point function.

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arXiv2019

Kurtosis of elliptic flow fluctuations

Elliptic flow ($v_2$) in ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions fluctuates event to event, both in magnitude and in orientation with respect to the reaction plane. Even though the reaction plane is not known event to event in experiment, we show that the statistical properties of $v_2$ fluctuations in the reaction plane can be precisely extracted from experimental data. Previous studies have shown how to measure the mean, variance and skewness using the first three cumulants $v_2\{2\}$, $v_2\{4\}$ and $v_2\{6\}$. We complement these studies by providing a formula for the kurtosis, which requires an accurate determination of the next cumulant $v_2\{8\}$. Using existing data, we show that the kurtosis is positive for most centralities, in contrast with the kurtosis of triangular flow fluctuations, which is negative. We argue that these features are robust predictions of fluid-dynamical models.

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arXiv2019

Isolating dynamical net-charge fluctuations

We modify the usual definitions of cumulants of net-charge fluctuations in a way that isolates dynamical fluctuations. The new observables, which we call dynamical cumulants, are robust with respect to trivial correlations induced by volume fluctuations and global charge conservation. We illustrate the potential of dynamical cumulants by carrying out Monte Carlo simulations where all correlations are trivial. The results of our simulations agree well with Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) data, and are used to illustrate that dynamical cumulants consistently isolate dynamical fluctuations.

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arXiv2018

Geometric scaling in symmetric nucleus-nucleus collisions

We show that the centrality dependence of the multiplicity is identical in Pb+Pb and Xe+Xe collisions at the LHC, up to a constant factor. This geometric scaling is revealed if one defines centrality according to impact parameter, as opposed to the usual experimental definition, which is in terms of multiplicity. We reconstruct the impact parameter dependence of the multiplicity from experimental data using a recently-developed inversion method, which turns out to describe ALICE Xe+Xe multiplicity data much better than usual Monte Carlo Glauber fits. The multiplicity as function of impact parameter extracted from ALICE data is compared to model calculations.

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arXiv2018

Reconstructing the impact parameter of proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions

In proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collision experiments, one determines the centrality of a collision according to the multiplicity or energy deposited in a detector. This serves as a proxy for the true collision centrality, as defined by the impact parameter. We show that the probability distribution of impact parameter in a given bin of experiment-defined centrality can be reconstructed without assuming any specific model for the collision dynamics, in both proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus systems. The reconstruction is reliable up to about 10\% centrality, and is more accurate for nucleus-nucleus collisions. We perform an application of our procedure to experimental data from all the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collaborations, from which we extract, in Pb+Pb and $p$+Pb collisions, the corresponding distributions of impact parameter.

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arXiv2018

Confronting hydrodynamic predictions with Xe-Xe data

Comparing collision systems of different size, at near the same collision energy, offers us the opportunity to probe the scaling behavior and therefore the nature of the system itself. Recently, we made predictions for Xe-Xe collisions at 5.44 TeV using viscous hydrodynamic simulations, noting that the scaling from the larger Pb-Pb system is rather generic, and arguing that robust predictions can be made that do not depend on details of the model. Here we confront our predictions with measurements that were subsequently made in a short Xe-Xe run at the LHC by the ALICE, ATLAS, and CMS collaborations. We find that the predictions are largely confirmed. Of particular interest is a strong indication of a non-spherical shape for the $^{129}$Xe nucleus.

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arXiv2018

Effects of initial-state dynamics on collective flow within a coupled transport and viscous hydrodynamic approach

We evaluate the effects of preequilibrium dynamics on observables in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. We simulate the initial nonequilibrium phase within A MultiPhase Transport (AMPT) model, while the subsequent near-equilibrium evolution is modeled using (2+1)-dimensional relativistic viscous hydrodynamics. We match the two stages of evolution carefully by calculating the full energy-momentum tensor from AMPT and using it as input for the hydrodynamic evolution. We find that when the preequilibrium evolution is taken into account, final-state observables are insensitive to the switching time from AMPT to hydrodynamics. Unlike some earlier treatments of preequilibrium dynamics, we do not find the initial shear viscous tensor to be large. With a shear viscosity to entropy density ratio of $0.12$, our model describes quantitatively a large set of experimental data on Pb+Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider(LHC) over a wide range of centrality: differential anisotropic flow $v_n(p_T) ~(n=2-6)$, event-plane correlations, correlation between $v_2$ and $v_3$, and cumulant ratio $v_2\{4\}/v_2\{2\}$.

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arXiv2018

Nonlinear coupling of flow harmonics: Hexagonal flow and beyond

Higher Fourier harmonics of anisotropic flow ($v_4$ and beyond) get large contributions induced by elliptic and triangular flow through nonlinear response. We present a general framework of nonlinear hydrodynamic response which encompasses the existing one, and allows to take into account the mutual correlation between the nonlinear couplings affecting Fourier harmonics of any order. Using Large Hadron Collider data on Pb+Pb collisions at ~$\sqrt[]{s}=2.76$ TeV, we perform an application of our formalism to hexagonal flow, $v_6$, a coefficient affected by several nonlinear contributions which are of the same order of magnitude. We obtain the first experimental measure of the coefficient $χ_{624}$, which couples $v_6$ to $v_2$ and $v_4$. This is achieved by putting together the information from several analyses: event-plane correlations, symmetric cumulants, as well as new higher-order moments recently analyzed by the ALICE collaboration. The value of $χ_{624}$ extracted from data is in fair agreement with hydrodynamic calculations, although with large error bars, which would be dramatically reduced by a dedicated analysis. We argue that within our formalism the nonlinear structure of a given higher harmonic can be determined more accurately than the harmonic itself, and we emphasize potential applications to future measurements of $v_7$ and $v_8$.

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arXiv2018

Relating centrality to impact parameter in nucleus-nucleus collisions

In ultrarelativistic heavy-ion experiments, one estimates the centrality of a collision by using a single observable, say $n$, typically given by the transverse energy or the number of tracks observed in a dedicated detector. The correlation between $n$ and the impact parameter, $b$, of the collision is then inferred by fitting a specific model of the collision dynamics, such as the Glauber model, to experimental data. The goal of this paper is to assess precisely which information about $b$ can be extracted from data without any specific model of the collision. Under the sole assumption that the probability distribution of $n$ for a fixed $b$ is Gaussian, we show that the probability distribution of the impact parameter in a narrow centrality bin can be accurately reconstructed up to $5\%$ centrality. We apply our methodology to data from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider. We propose a simple measure of the precision of the centrality determination, which can be used to compare different experiments.

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arXiv2017

Hydrodynamic predictions for 5.44 TeV Xe+Xe collisions

We argue that relativistic hydrodynamics is able to make robust predictions for soft particle production in Xe+Xe collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The change of system size from Pb+Pb to Xe+Xe provides a unique opportunity to test the scaling laws inherent to fluid dynamics. Using event-by-event hydrodynamic simulations, we make quantitative predictions for several observables: mean transverse momentum, anisotropic flow coefficients, and their fluctuations. Results are shown as function of collision centrality.

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arXiv2017

Constraining the equation of state with identified particle spectra

We show that in a central nucleus-nucleus collision, the variation of the mean transverse mass with the multiplicity is determined, up to a rescaling, by the variation of the energy over entropy ratio as a function of the entropy density, thus providing a direct link between experimental data and the equation of state. Each colliding energy thus probes the equation of state at an effective entropy density, whose approximate value is $19$ fm$^{-3}$ for Au+Au collisions at 200 GeV and $41$ fm$^{-3}$ for Pb+Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV, corresponding to temperatures of $227$ MeV and $279$ MeV if the equation of state is taken from lattice calculations. The relative change of the mean transverse mass as a function of the colliding energy gives a direct measure of the pressure over energy density ratio $P/ε$, at the corresponding effective density. Using RHIC and LHC data, we obtain $P/ε=0.21\pm 0.10$, in agreement with the lattice value $P/ε=0.23$ in the corresponding temperature range. Measurements over a wide range of colliding energies using a single detector with good particle identification would help reducing the error.

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arXiv2017

Relative flow fluctuations as a probe of initial state fluctuations

Elliptic flow, $v_2$, and triangular flow, $v_3$, are to a good approximation linearly proportional to the corresponding spatial anisotropies of the initial density profile, $\varepsilon_2$ and $\varepsilon_3$. Using event-by-event hydrodynamic simulations, we point out when deviations from this linear scaling are to be expected. When these deviations are negligible, relative $v_n$ fluctuations are equal to relative $\varepsilon_n$ fluctuations, and one can directly probe models of initial conditions using ratios of cumulants, for instance $v_n\{4\}/v_n\{2\}$. We argue that existing models of initial conditions tend to overestimate flow fluctuations in central Pb+Pb collisions, and to underestimate them in peripheral collisions. We make predictions for $v_3\{6\}$ in noncentral Pb+Pb collisions, and for $v_3\{4\}$ and $v_3\{6\}$ in high-multiplicity p+Pb collisions.

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arXiv2017

Systematic procedure for analyzing cumulants at any order

We present a systematic procedure for analyzing cumulants to arbitrary order in the context of heavy-ion collisions. It generalizes and improves existing procedures in many respects. In particular, particles which are correlated are allowed to belong to different phase-space windows, which may overlap. It also allows for the analysis of cumulants at any order, using a simple algorithm rather than complicated expressions to be derived and coded by hand. In the case of azimuthal correlations, it automatically corrects to leading order for detector non-uniformity, and it is useful for numerous other applications as well. We discuss several of these applications: anisotropic flow, event-plane correlations, symmetric cumulants, net baryon and net charge fluctuations.

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