Reconstructing azimuthal distributions in nucleus-nucleus collisions

Abstract

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.

revised version, 10 pages, Latex, 4 Postscript figures included

Cited by in corpus (10)

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• Detecting a First-Order Transition in the QCD Phase Diagram with Baryon-Baryon Correlations
• First Measurement of the J/psi Azimuthal Anisotropy in PHENIX at Forward Rapidity in Au+Au Collisions at sqrt s(NN) = 200 GeV
• Elliptic flow and the high $p_T$ ridge in Au+Au collisions
• Jet quenching and high-pt azimuthal asymmetry