The nature of flow fluctuations, from pp to A+A, and back again

by Mr Mingliang Zhou (Stony Brook University)

Tuesday 3 Oct 2017, 11:00 → 12:00 US/Eastern

Small seminar room (Universe)

In recent years, there have been rapid progresses in our understanding of the event-by-event flow fluctuation, which provides direct insight into the fluctuations in the initial geometry. I will start my talk by briefly discussing the flow (collectivity) and its fluctuation in small systems pp and p+Pb, using the newly-proposed subevent cumulant method, which is able to suppress the non-flow background effectively. I will show there is significant fluctuation of elliptic flow $v_2$ in pp and non-Gaussian fluctuation of triangular flow $v_3$ in p+Pb. Moving from small to large systems, STAR collaboration recently has shown different behaviors of cumulant $c_2\{4\}$ between Au+Au and U+U in ultra-central collisions, which is believed to support the different geometry fluctuations. By presenting the newest ATLAS flow measurements in ultra-central collisions, together with detailed MC Glauber studies, I will explain why sign change of $c_2\{4\}$ is observed and its implications. In the end, I will go back to small systems and discuss the potential impact of centrality resolution on pp flow measurements.