A collision between a proton and a heavy nucleus at ultrarelativistic energy creates particles whose rapidity distribution is asymmetric, with more particles emitted in the direction of the nucleus than in the direction of the proton. This asymmetry becomes more pronounced as the centrality estimator, defined from the energy deposited in a calorimeter, increases. We argue that for high-multiplicity collisions, the variation of the impact parameter plays a negligible role, and that the fluctuations of the multiplicity and of the centrality estimator are dominated by quantum fluctuations, whose probability distribution can be well approximated by a correlated gamma distribution. We show that this simple model reproduces existing data, and we make quantitative predictions for collisions in the and centrality windows. We argue that by repeating the same analysis with a different centrality estimator, one can obtain direct information about the rapidity decorrelation in particle production.

中文翻译：

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超中心质子-核碰撞中的多重波动和快速相关性


质子和重核在超相对论能量下的碰撞产生的粒子的速度分布不对称，沿原子核方向发射的粒子多于沿质子方向发射的粒子。随着由热量计中沉积的能量定义的中心性估计量的增加，这种不对称性变得更加明显。我们认为，对于高重数碰撞，碰撞参数的变化可以忽略不计，并且重数和中心性估计量的波动主要由量子涨落主导，其概率分布可以通过相关伽玛分布很好地近似。我们证明这个简单的模型再现了现有数据，并且我们对 和 中心性窗口中的碰撞进行了定量预测。我们认为，通过使用不同的中心性估计器重复相同的分析，人们可以获得有关粒子产生中的快速去相关的直接信息。