English

Mapping the Proton's Fluctuating Waistline

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2014-02-05 v3

Abstract

We discuss a mechanism for the apparently universal scaling in the high-multiplicity tail of charged particle distributions for high energy nuclear collisions. We argue that this scaling behavior originates from rare fluctuations of the nucleon density. We discuss a pair of simple models of proton shape fluctuations. A "fat" proton with a size of 3 fm occurs with observable frequency. In light of this result, collective flow behavior in the ensuing nuclear interaction seems feasible. We discuss the influence of these models on the large xx structure of the proton and the likely influences on the distribution of initial state spatial eccentricities ϵn\epsilon_{n}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1307.5911,
  title  = {Mapping the Proton's Fluctuating Waistline},
  author = {Christopher E Coleman-Smith and Berndt Müller},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.5911},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

10 Pages, 15 Figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T00:55:54.476Z