Phase-space Dependence of Particle-Ratio Fluctuations in Pb+Pb Collisions from 20A to 158A GeV Beam Energy

A novel approach, the identity method, was used for particle identification and the study of fluctuations of particle yield ratios in Pb+Pb collisions at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). This procedure allows to unfold the moments of the unknown multiplicity distributions of protons (p), kaons (K), pions (π) and electrons (e). Using these moments the excitation function of the fluctuation measure ν\text{;dyn};[A, B] was measured, with A and B denoting different particle types. The obtained energy dependence of νdyn agrees with previously published NA49 results on the related measure σdyn. Moreover, νdyn was found to depend on the phase space coverage for [K, p] and [K, π] pairs. This feature most likely explains the reported differences between measurements of NA49 and those of STAR in central Au+Au collisions.