Moments of event observable distributions and many-body correlations

Abstract

We investigate event-by-event fluctuations for ensembles with non-fixed multiplicity. Moments of event observable distributions, like total energy distribution, total transverse momentum distribution, etc, are shown to be related to the multi-body correlations present in the system. For classical systems, these moments reduce in the absence of any correlations to the moments of particle inclusive momentum distribution. As a consequence, a zero value for the recently introduced $Φ$-variable is shown to indicate the vanishing of two-body correlations from one part, and of correlations between multiplicity and momentum distributions from the other part. It is often misunderstood as a measure of the degree of equilibration in the system.