Correlations in the Monte Carlo Glauber model

Jean-Paul Blaizot (1) , Wojciech Broniowski (2, 1, 3) , Jean-Yves Ollitrault (1)

1 IPHT - Institut de Physique Théorique - UMR CNRS 3681
2 H. Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics
3 Jan Kochanowski University

Event-by-event fluctuations of observables are often modeled using the Monte Carlo Glauber model, in which the energy is initially deposited in sources associated with wounded nucleons. In this paper, we analyze in detail the correlations between these sources in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. There are correlations arising from nucleon-nucleon correlations within each nucleus, and correlations due to the collision mechanism, which we dub twin correlations. We investigate this new phenomenon in detail. At the RHIC and LHC energies, correlations are found to have modest effects on size and eccentricity fluctuations, such that the Glauber model produces to a good approximation a collection of independent sources.

Keywords: ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus and proton-nucleus collisions; two-particle correlations; event- by-event fluctuations; collective flow; Glauber models; SPS; RHIC; LHC

Domains: Nuclear Theory [nucl-th]

Jean-Paul Blaizot, Wojciech Broniowski, Jean-Yves Ollitrault. Correlations in the Monte Carlo Glauber model. Physical Review C, 2014, 90, pp.034906. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevC.90.034906⟩. ⟨cea-00996182v2⟩