Baryon number conservation and the cumulants of the net proton distribution

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how baryon number conservation affects the cumulants of net proton distributions in heavy-ion collisions, proposing an observable that remains unaffected by these conservation effects.

Contribution

It provides analytical derivations of probability distributions and cumulants considering baryon number conservation, and introduces an observable insensitive to these effects.

Findings

Higher order cumulants decrease significantly due to baryon number conservation.

An observable is proposed that is unaffected by baryon number conservation effects.

Analytical formulas for modified cumulants are derived.

Abstract

We discuss the modification of the cumulants of the net baryon and net proton distributions due to the global conservation of baryon number in heavy-ion collisions. Corresponding probability distributions and their cumulants are derived analytically. We show that the conservation of baryon number results in a substantial decrease of higher order cumulants. Based on our studies, we propose an observable that is insensitive to the modifications due to baryon number conservation.