Intermittency, moments and correlations in distributions of particles created in high-energy collisions.

Abstract

Intermittency, as introduced into multiparticle production by Bialas and Peschanski, has become a fruitful and rapidly growing industry. The original concept of intermittency in the form of the Alpha model is discussed in detail and suggestions for extensions are made. We analyze the factorial moments measured by different experimental collaborations in terms of their nontrivial many-particle correlations, the cumulants. A large fraction of measured moments is shown to originate in two-particle correlations. The validity of the Linked Pair ansatz is tested and found to be acceptable to fourth order for hadronic collisions but uncertain for nuclear collisions. A cumulant decomposition for bin-bin correlations is derived, and a general formalism is developed for treating correlations of particle distributions consisting of several distinct populations, such as particles of different charge.