Evidence for transverse momentum and pseudorapidity dependent event plane fluctuations in PbPb and pPb collisions

TL;DR

This study investigates how event plane fluctuations depend on transverse momentum and pseudorapidity in PbPb and pPb collisions, revealing factorization breaking linked to initial conditions and medium evolution.

Contribution

It provides the first systematic analysis of azimuthal correlation factorization breaking as a function of pt and eta in heavy ion collisions, aligning with hydrodynamic models.

Findings

Factorization breaks down with increasing pt and eta differences.

Breakdown magnitude varies with collision centrality and multiplicity.

Data supports initial-state sensitivity over medium viscosity effects.

Abstract

A systematic study of the factorization of long-range azimuthal two-particle correlations into a product of single-particle anisotropies is presented as a function of pt and eta of both particles, and as a function of the particle multiplicity in PbPb and pPb collisions. The data were taken with the CMS detector for PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV and pPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 5.02 TeV, covering a very wide range of multiplicity. Factorization is observed to be broken as a function of both particle pt and eta. When measured with particles of different pt, the magnitude of the factorization breakdown for the second Fourier harmonic reaches 20% for very central PbPb collisions but decreases rapidly as the multiplicity decreases. The data are consistent with viscous hydrodynamic predictions, which suggest that the effect of factorization breaking is mainly sensitive to the initial-state conditions rather than to the transport properties (e.g., shear viscosity) of the medium. The factorization breakdown is also computed with particles of different eta. The effect is found to be weakest for mid-central PbPb events but becomes larger for more central or peripheral PbPb collisions, and also for very high-multiplicity pPb collisions. The eta-dependent factorization data provide new insights to the longitudinal evolution of the medium formed in heavy ion collisions.