Kinematic dependence of azimuthal anisotropies in $p$$+$Au, $d$$+$Au, $^3$He+Au at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}$ = 200 GeV

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the azimuthal anisotropies in small collision systems depend on kinematic variables, providing insights into the formation of quark-gluon plasma and the effects of geometry and nonflow contributions.

Contribution

It offers an independent analysis confirming previous flow measurements and extends the results to different detector configurations and kinematic ranges.

Findings

Excellent agreement with previous PHENIX results on flow coefficients.

Extended analysis to various detector combinations and pseudorapidity coverages.

Constraints on nonflow effects and longitudinal decorrelations.

Abstract

There is strong evidence for the formation of small droplets of quark-gluon plasma in $p/d/^{3}$He+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and in $p$+$p$/Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. In particular, the analysis of data at RHIC for different geometries obtained by varying the projectile size and shape has proven insightful. In the present analysis, we find excellent agreement with the previously published PHENIX at RHIC results on elliptical and triangular flow with an independent analysis via the two-particle correlation method, which has quite different systematic uncertainties and an independent code base. In addition, the results are extended to other detector combinations with different kinematic (pseudorapidity) coverage. These results provide additional constraints on contributions from nonflow and longitudinal decorrelations.