Strongly intensive variables and long-range correlations in the model with a lattice in the transverse plane

In the framework of the quark–gluon string fusion model on the transverse lattice, we study a strongly intensive variable characterizing correlations between the number of particles produced in hadronic interactions in two observation windows separated by a rapidity interval. We show that in the case of independent identical strings, this variable is indeed strongly intensive. It depends only on string characteristics and is independent of trivial so-called volume fluctuations in the string number resulting, in particular, from inevitable impact parameter fluctuations. With string fusion effects causing the production of string clusters with new properties taken into account, this variable turns out to be equal to the weighted average of its values for different string clusters. The weighting coefficients depend on the collision conditions, and the variable loses its strongly intensive character. In the framework of this model in a realistic case with a nonuniform string distribution in the transverse plane, we find explicit analytic formulas for the asymptotic coefficients of long-range correlations between different quantities including an intensive one, the average transverse momentum. We analyze the properties of the obtained correlation coefficients, the studied strongly intensive variable, and also the possibilities of its experimental observation.