Measurement of longitudinal flow decorrelations in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\text {NN}}}=2.76$ and 5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector
Measurements of longitudinal flow correlations are presented for charged particles in the pseudorapidity range |η|<2.4 using 7 and 470 μb -1 of Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s}$$_ {NN}$= 2.76 and 5.02 TeV, respectively, recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. It is found that the correlation between the harmonic flow coefficients v n measured in two separated η intervals does not factorise into the product of single-particle coefficients, and this breaking of factorisation, or flow decorrelation, increases linearly with the η separation between the intervals. The flow decorrelation is stronger at 2.76 TeV than at 5.02 TeV. Higher-order moments of the correlations are also measured, and the corresponding linear coefficients for the kth-moment of the vn are found to be proportional to k for v 3 , but not for v 2 . The decorrelation effect is separated into contributions from the magnitude of v n and the event-plane orientation, each as a function of η. These two contributions are found to be comparable. The longitudinal flow correlations are also measured between v n of different order in n. The decorrelations of v 2 and v 3 are found to be independent of each other, while the decorrelations of v 4 and v 5 are found to be driven by the nonlinear contribution from v$2\atop{2}$ and v 2 v 3 , respectively.