1997/11/07 by Jean-Yves Ollitrault, Ollitrault, Jean-Yves
Physics and Astronomy · #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #nucl-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.nucl-ex/9711003
revised version, 10 pages, Latex, 4 Postscript figures included
arxiv created 1997/11/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Azimuthal distributions of particles produced in nucleus-nucleus collisions are measured with respect to an estimated reaction plane which, because of finite multiplicity fluctuations, differs in general from the true reaction plane. It follows that the measured distributions do not coincide with the true ones. I propose a general method of reconstructing the Fourier coefficients of the true azimuthal distributions from the measured ones. This analysis suggests that the Fourier coefficients are the best observables to characterize azimuthal anisotropies because, unlike other observables such as the in-plane anisotropy ratio or the squeeze-out ratio, they can be reconstructed accurately.