Method for high-accuracy multiplicity-correlation measurements

Multiplicity-correlation measurements provide insight into the dynamics of high-energy collisions. Models describing these collisions need these correlation measurements to tune the strengths of the underlying QCD processes which influence all observables. Detectors, however, often possess limited coverage or reduced efficiency that influence correlation measurements in obscure ways. In this paper, the effects of nonuniform detection acceptance and efficiency on the measurement of multiplicity correlations between two distinct detector regions (termed forward-backward correlations) are derived. An analysis method with such effects built in is developed and subsequently verified using different event generators. The resulting method accounts for acceptance and efficiency in a model-independent manner with high accuracy, thereby shedding light on the relative contributions of the underlying processes to particle production.