Non-flow correlations and elliptic flow fluctuations in Au+Au collisions at [sqrt]sNN=200 GeV

• Main Authors: Busza, Wit (Contributor), Ballintijn, Maarten (Contributor), Decowski, Michael P. (Contributor), Gulbrandsen, K. (Contributor), Henderson, C. (Contributor), Kane, J. L. (Contributor), Kulinich, Piotr (Contributor), Li, W. (Contributor), Loizides, Constantin (Contributor), Reed, C. (Contributor), Roland, Christof E. (Contributor), Roland, Gunther M. (Contributor), Stephans, George S. F. (Contributor), Vale, C. (Contributor), van Nieuwenhuizen, Gerrit Jan (Contributor), Vaurynovich, Siarhei S. (Contributor), Verdier, Robin (Contributor), Veres, Gabor (Contributor), Wenger, Edward Allen (Contributor), Wyslouch, Boleslaw (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Physical Society, 2010-08-12T16:36:35Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 This article presents results on event-by-event elliptic flow fluctuations in Au+Au collisions at [sqrt]sNN= 200 GeV, where the contribution from non-flow correlations has been subtracted. An analysis method is introduced to measure non-flow correlations, relying on the assumption that non-flow correlations are most prominent at short ranges (|Δeta|<2). Assuming that non-flow correlations are of the order that is observed in p+p collisions for long-range correlations (|Δeta|>2), relative elliptic flow fluctuations of approximately 30-40% are observed. These results are consistent with predictions based on spatial fluctuations of the participating nucleons in the initial nuclear overlap region. It is found that the long-range non-flow correlations in Au+Au collisions would have to be more than an order of magnitude strongercompared to the p+p data to lead to the observed azimuthal anisotropy fluctuations with no intrinsic elliptic flow fluctuations.