The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and its use for the identification of fireball fragmentation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test effectively identifies non-statistical differences in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collision events, especially for detecting fireball fragmentation during phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to identify fireball fragmentation in heavy ion collisions, supported by Monte Carlo simulations.

Findings

The test successfully detects fragmentation signatures in simulated data.

It distinguishes between different event scenarios with high sensitivity.

The method offers a rapid and reliable tool for analyzing collision event variability.

Abstract

We propose an application of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for rapidity distributions of individual events in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. The test is particularly suitable to recognise non-statistical differences between the events. Thus when applied to a narrow centrality class it could indicate differences between events which would not be expected if all events evolve according to the same scenario. In particular, as an example we assume here a possible fragmentation of the fireball into smaller pieces at the quark/hadron phase transition. Quantitative studies are performed with a Monte Carlo model capable of simulating such a distribution of hadrons. We conclude that the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is a very powerful tool for the identification of the fragmentation process.