Recent results on event-by-event fluctuations in ALICE at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent experimental results from ALICE at the LHC on event-by-event fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions, which are used to probe the QCD phase transition and properties of the quark-gluon plasma.

Contribution

It presents new measurements of net-charge fluctuations, balance functions, and mean transverse momentum fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC.

Findings

Net-charge fluctuations show suppression consistent with QGP formation.

Balance functions indicate delayed hadronization.

Mean transverse momentum fluctuations suggest critical phenomena.

Abstract

Non-statistical event-by-event fluctuations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions have been proposed as a probe of the phase transition of hadronic matter to a deconfined phase of quarks and gluons, the so-called Quark-Gluon Plasma. In a thermodynamical picture of the strongly interacting system formed in heavy-ion collisions, the dynamical fluctuations of net-charge, fluctuations of the mean transverse momentum, mean multiplicity and balance functions are related to the fundamental properties of the system, hence they may reveal information about the QCD phase transition. In this article, recent results on event-by-event measurements of net-charge fluctuations, the measurement of the balance function and mean transverse momentum fluctuations are discussed.