Centrality Determination in Heavy-Ion Collisions Based on Monte-Carlo Sampling of Spectator Fragments

The size and evolution of the matter created in a relativistic heavy-ion collision strongly depend on collision geometry, defined by centrality. Experimentally the centrality of collisions can be characterized by the measured multiplicities of the produced particles at midrapidity or by the energy measured in the forward rapidity region, which is sensitive to the spectator fragments. This serves as a proxy for the true collision centrality, as defined by the impact parameter in the models of collisions. In this work, the procedure for centrality determination based on Monte-Carlo sampling of spectator fragments has been proposed. The validity of the procedure has been checked using the fully reconstructed DCM-QGSM-SMM model events and published data from the NA61/SHINE experiment.