  The critical point of dense, strongly interacting matter is searched for at
the CERN SPS in ${}^{40}$Ar + ${}^{45}$Sc collisions at 150A GeV/c. The
dependence of second-order scaled factorial moments of proton multiplicity
distribution on the number of subdivisions of transverse momentum space is
measured. The intermittency analysis is performed using both transverse
momentum and cumulative transverse momentum. For the first time, statistically
independent data sets are used for each subdivision number. The obtained
results do not indicate any statistically significant intermittency pattern. An
upper limit on the fraction of critical proton pairs and the power of the
correlation function is obtained based on a comparison with the Power-law Model
developed for this purpose.
