On the forward-backward correlations in a two-stage scenario

Abstract

It is demonstrated that in a two-stage scenario with elementary Poissonian emitters of particles (colour strings) arbitrarily distributed in their number and average multiplicities, the forward- backward correlations are completely determined by the final distribution of the forward particles. The observed linear form of the correlations then necessarily requires this distribution to have a negative binomial form. For emitters with a negative binomial distribution of the produced particles distributed so as to give the final distribution also of a negative binomial form, the forward-backward correlations have an essentially non-linear form, which disagrees with the experimental data.