Comparison of Methods for Elliptic Flow Measurements at NICA Energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 4-11 GeV

TL;DR

This paper evaluates various methods for measuring elliptic flow in heavy-ion collisions at NICA energies, using simulations to compare their effectiveness in the context of the MPD detector's capabilities.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of event plane and cumulant methods for elliptic flow measurement at NICA energies, highlighting their sensitivities to non-flow and fluctuations.

Findings

Event plane and cumulant methods show different sensitivities to non-flow effects.

Simulations indicate the optimal method depends on collision centrality.

Flow fluctuations impact the accuracy of elliptic flow measurements.

Abstract

The goal of the Multi-Purpose Detector (MPD) experiment at NICA collider is to explore the QCD phase diagram of strongly interacting matter produced in nucleus-nucleus collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=4-11$ GeV. The performance of MPD detector for elliptic flow measurements of charged hadrons is studied with Monte-Carlo simulations using collisions of Au+Au ions employing UrQMD, SMASH, and AMPT heavy-ion event generators. Different methods for flow measurements: event plane and direct cumulants are used to investigate the contribution of non-flow correlations and flow fluctuations.