Measurement of long-range correlations in small systems with the ATLAS detector
By: Xiao Tu
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2020
Place of publication: [New York, N.Y.?]
Language: eng
Description: Two-charged-particle correlations are measured as a function of pseudorapidity and azimuthal angle difference in pp collisions at √s = 13, 2.76 and 5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. A long-range structure in the two-dimensional function centered at ∆φ = 0 and extending over a large range of ∆η referred to as the “ridge” is seen in the three data sets. A template fitting method is implemented to extract the Fourier harmonics of the flow and gives the dependence of the harmonics on the charged-particle multiplicities. In this method a rescaled correlation function from peripheral events representing the recoil component plus a cosine modulation representing the ridge is used to describe the whole one-dimensional correlation function. Different multiplicity intervals for the peripheral events are used to extract the harmonics. The results presented show that vn,n from correlation functions can be factorized into the products of single particle vn. Significant contributions from v₂, v₃ and v₄ are obtained and their dependences on multiplicity and transverse momentum are studied.

It is also shown that there is significant vn even in the lowest multiplicity bins. In addition, the second harmonics v₂ in pp do not have a significant dependence on both the multiplicity and collision energy. Results of pp and pPb at the same energy are compared with each other in both multiplicity and pT distributions. Both chᵗʳᵏ−chᵗʳᵏ and chᵗʳᵏ-muon correlations are measured in pPb collisions at √sNN = 8.16 TeV. Long-range correlations are studied through template fitting procedure. chᵗʳᵏ-v₂ increases with the number of reconstructed charged tracks at low multiplicity and saturates at high multiplicity. Muon-v₂ is considerably smaller than chᵗʳᵏ-v₂ and only has a weak dependence on event multiplicity. Factorization in both cases works pretty well. Two-charged-particle correlation functions are also measured in Xe+Xe events at √sNN = 5.44 TeV. In the most central collisions direct Fourier decomposition is preferred to avoid negative recoil component that might appear in the template fitting method. vn reaches its maximum value in the mid-centrality region and becomes smaller at both low and high centralities.

Results are compared with Pb+Pb events at √sNN = 5.02 TeV showing that vn obtained from these two systems have similar values and behaviors.
Notes: Department: Physics.

Thesis advisor: Brian A. Cole.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Columbia University, 2020.