On MLE as a Estimator for Flow Analysis in Relativistic Heavy‐Ion Collisions

Anisotropic collective flow in relativistic heavy‐ion collisions provides important constraints on the properties of the quark–gluon plasma and fluctuations of the initial state. In this work, we explore the extraction of flow harmonics and correlation observables using a maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) framework. The method treats harmonic coefficients as parameters of the underlying azimuthal probability distribution and determines them by maximizing the likelihood of the observed particle sample. We discuss the connection between initial‐state granularity and final‐state correlations using the peripheral tube picture. The influence of non‐flow contributions is examined using simplified models. The results indicate that the MLE framework provides a flexible statistical approach for studying anisotropic flow and multi‐particle correlations in heavy‐ion collisions.