Eccentricity fluctuations are not the only source of elliptic flow fluctuations in a multiphase transport model**Supported by MOST, China, under 973 Grant 2015CB856901, National Natural Science Foundation of China (11521064, 11547143, 11228513), U.S. Department of Energy (DE-FG02-88ER40412), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, South-Central University for Nationalities (CZQ15001) and Excellent Doctorial Dissertation Cultivation Grant from Central China Normal University

Abstract

Sources of event-by-event elliptic flow fluctuations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions are investigated in a multiphase parton transport model (AMPT). Besides the well-known initial eccentricity fluctuations, several other sources of elliptic flow dynamical fluctuations are identified. One is fluctuations in initial parton configurations at a given eccentricity. Configuration fluctuations are found to be as important as eccentricity fluctuations in elliptic flow development. A second is quantum fluctuations in parton-parton interactions during system evolution. A third is fluctuations caused by hadronization and final-state hadronic scatterings. The magnitudes of these fluctuations are investigated relative to the eccentricity fluctuations and the average elliptic flow magnitude. The fluctuations from the latter two sources are found to be negative. The results may have important implications for the interpretation of elliptic flow data.