Moment analysis, multiplicity distributions and correlations in high energy processes: nucleus-nucleus collisions

Cumulant oscillations, or Hq moment oscillations, appear if the KNO multiparticle distribution decreases at large z, z ≡ n〈n〉, faster than the exponential, exp(−Dzμ), with μ > 1. In nucleus-nucleus interactions this behaviour is related to the limitation in the average number of elementary central collisions (or average number of strings centrally produced), due to the finite number of nucleons involved. Colour deconfinement, via percolating string fusion, will drastically decrease the fraction of centrally produced strings and increase the cut-off parameter μ: Moment oscillations will be displaced to smaller q and the width of the KNO distribution and forward-backward particle correlations will become smaller.