Measurement of nonrandom event-by-event fluctuations of average transverse momentum in square root of (sNN)=200 GeV Au+Au and p+p collisions

Phys Rev Lett. 2004 Aug 27;93(9):092301. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.092301. Epub 2004 Aug 24.

Abstract

Event-by-event fluctuations of the average transverse momentum of produced particles near midrapidity have been measured by the PHENIX Collaboration in square root of (sNN)=200 GeV Au+Au, and p+p collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The fluctuations are observed to be in excess of the expectation for statistically independent particle emission for all centralities. The excess fluctuations exhibit a dependence on both the centrality of the collision and on the pT range over which the average is calculated. Both the centrality and pT dependence can be well reproduced by a simulation of random particle production with the addition of contributions from hard-scattering processes.