Comparison of experimental and theoretical results to define centrality of heavy ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper compares experimental and theoretical results to determine how well charged particle counts and impact parameters define collision centrality in heavy ion experiments, revealing differences between light and heavy nuclei.

Contribution

It demonstrates that charged particle multiplicity can fix centrality in light nuclei but not in heavy nuclei due to energy and mass dependencies.

Findings

Charged particle count effectively indicates centrality for light nuclei.

Impact parameter and charged particle results differ significantly for heavy nuclei.

Charged particle multiplicity is unreliable for fixing centrality in heavy ion collisions.

Abstract

Using the simulation data coming from the cascade model, we have studied the behavior of event number as a function of impact parameter-b and a number of all charged particles- Nch for light and heavy nuclei at different energies. We have seen that for light nuclei, a number of all charged particles-Nch could be used to fix the centrality. But for heavy nuclei we have got strong initial energy and mass dependences and the results for impact parameter factor dependences and ones for a number of all charged particles differ. So for heavy nuclei, a number of charged particles-Nch could not be use to fix the centrality. Key words: cascade model; centrality, light nuclei, heavy nuclei