Deblurring for nuclei: 3D characteristics of heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

Observables from nuclear and high-energy experiments can be degraded by detector performance and/or methodology in extracting the observables, such as of the final-state characteristics of heavy-ion collisions in relation to a coarsely estimated reaction-plane direction. We propose the use of deblurring methods, such as in optics, to correct for observable degradation. Our main focus is the restoration of triple-differential particle distributions in heavy-ion collisions. We demonstrate that these could be extracted from collision measurements following the Richardson-Lucy deblurring method from optics. We illustrate basic features of the restoration methodology in a schematic model assuming either ideal or more realistic particle detection. The inferred three-dimensional (3D) distributions for collisions may easier to interpret in terms of collision dynamics and sought properties of bulk matter than the currently employed Fourier coefficients, that combine information from different azimuthal angles relative to the reaction plane.