2017/08/31 by Sruthy Jyothi Das, Giuliano Giacalone, Pierre-Amaury Monard +1 · 57 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Algorithm #Bin #Centrality #Collision #Computer science #Data mining #Detector #Gaussian #Glauber #Heavy ion #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Impact parameter #Ion #Large Hadron Collider #Mathematics #Measure (data warehouse) #Nuclear physics #Observable #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Probability distribution #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quantum mechanics #Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider #Scattering #Statistical physics #Statistics #hep-ph #nucl-ex #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevc.97.014905
published in Physical Review C 97(1) (American Institute of Physics) · 9 pages, 8 figures; v2, published version: added analysis of CMS data; added fit of STAR data in Fig.6; ancillary file (fit.py) contains a python script which performs the fit of Trento data (trento.dat) on distribution of entropy
openalex publication_date 2018/01/19 · arxiv created 2018/01/22 · arxiv updated 2018/02/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
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.