Measurement of the distributions of event-by-event flow harmonics in Pb-Pb Collisions at sqrt(s_nn)=2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

The event-by-event distributions of harmonic flow coefficients v_n for n=2-4 are measured in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt(s_nn)=2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector, using charged particles with p_T > 0.5 GeV and |\eta|<2.5. The shape of the v_n distributions is consistent with Gaussian fluctuations in central collisions for v_2 and over the measured centrality range for v_3 and v_4. When these distributions are rescaled to have the same <v_n>, the resulting shapes are nearly the same for p_T>1 GeV and 0.5<p_T<1 GeV. The v_n distributions are compared with the eccentricity distributions from two initial geometry models: Glauber and the MC-KLN model. Both fail to describe the v_2 data consistently over the full centrality range

Comments: 4 pages, 5 figures, proceedings of talk at the 23rd International Conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions, QM2012, August 13-18, 2012, Washington DC