First measurement of symmetric cumulants of hexagonal flow harmonics in Pb$-$Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports the first measurement of symmetric cumulants involving hexagonal flow harmonics in Pb-Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV, providing new constraints on initial conditions and transport properties in heavy-ion collision models.

Contribution

It presents the first measurement of correlations up to the hexagonal flow harmonic, $v_6$, and compares these with hydrodynamic models to improve understanding of initial conditions and transport properties.

Findings

Higher-order correlations vary with collision centrality and harmonic order.

Discrepancies between data and models depend on harmonic combinations.

Results offer new constraints for theoretical modeling of heavy-ion collisions.

Abstract

Correlations between event-by-event fluctuations of anisotropic flow harmonics are measured in Pb$-$Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV, as recorded by the ALICE detector at the LHC. This study presents correlations up to the hexagonal flow harmonic, $v_6$, which was measured for the first time. The magnitudes of these higher-order correlations are found to vary as a function of collision centrality and harmonic order. These measurements are compared to viscous hydrodynamic model calculations with EKRT initial conditions and to the iEBE-VISHNU model with TRENTo initial conditions. The observed discrepancies between the data and the model calculations vary depending on the harmonic combinations. Due to the sensitivity of model parameters estimated with Bayesian analyses to these higher-order observables, the results presented in this work provide new and independent constraints on the initial conditions and transport properties in theoretical models used to describe the system created in heavy-ion collisions.