Centrality Selection Effect on Elliptic Flow Measurements in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions at NICA Energies

The elliptic flow (<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mi>v</mi><mn>2</mn></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula>) of produced particles is one of the important observables sensitive to the transport properties of the strongly interacting matter created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Detailed differential measurements of <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mi>v</mi><mn>2</mn></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula> are also foreseen in the future Multi-Purpose Detector (MPD) experiment at the Nuclotron based Ion Collider fAcility (NICA) at collision energies <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msqrt><msub><mi>s</mi><mrow><mi>N</mi><mi>N</mi></mrow></msub></msqrt></semantics></math></inline-formula> = 4–11 GeV. Elliptic flow strongly depends on collision geometry, defined by the impact parameter <i>b</i>. Usually <i>b</i> is an input to theoretical calculations and can be deduced from experimental observables in the final state using the centrality procedure. In this work, we investigate the influence of the choice of centrality procedure on the elliptic flow measurements at NICA energies.