Pion multiplicity in nuclear collisions

Data on the mean multiplicity of ^- produced in minimum bias proton-proton, proton-neutron and proton-nucleus interactions as well as central nucleus-nucleus collisions at momenta of 1.4–400 GeV/c per nucleon have been compiled and studied. The results for neutron-neutron and nucleon-nucleon interactions were then constructed. The dependence of the mean pion multiplicity in proton-nucleus interactions and central collisions of identical nuclei are studied as a function of the collision energy and the nucleus mass number. The number of produced pions per participant nucleon in central collisions of identical nuclei is found to be independent of the number of participants at a fixed incident momentum per nucleon. The mean multiplicity of negatively charged hadrons per participant nucleon for central nucleus-nucleus collisions is lower by about 0.12 than the corresponding multiplicity for nucleon-nucleon interactions atp _LAB 15 A·GeV/c, whereas the result at 200 A·GeV/c is above the corresponding nucleon-nucleon multiplicity. This may indicate change of the collision dynamics at high energy.     

Study of the energy flow in sulphur-and oxygen-nucleus collisions at 60 and 200 GeV/nucleon

Data on multiplicities of charged particles produced in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at 200 GeV per nucleon are presented. It is shown that the mean multiplicity of negative particles is proportional to the mean number of nucleons participating in the collision both for nucleus-nucleus and proton-nucleus collisions. The apparent consistency of pion multiplicity data with the assumption of an incoherent superposition of nucleon-nucleon collisions is critically discussed.     

Particle production in Pb+Pb collisions at the SPS

Experiment NA49 at the CERN SPS employs a large acceptance detector to study particle spectra, yields and correlations in nucleus-nucleus, nucleon-nucleus and nucleon-nucleon collisions. Preliminary results on pion, kaon, A and ā production in central Pb+Pb collisions at 40, 80 and 158 A·GeV beam energy are shown and compared to measurements at lower and higher energies.     

Entropy in nuclear collisions

Data on the multiplicity of pions produced in nucleon-nucleon interactions and central collisions of identical nuclei are discussed using a statistical approach. It is argued that the suppression of the pion production observed at low energies (p _LAB <15>c per nucleon) is due to entropy transfer to baryons. The enhancement of the entropy production in central S+S collisions at 200 GeV/c per nucleon may be interpreted as manifestation of the increase, by a factor of about 3, of the effective number of degrees of freedom in the early stage of the collision.     

Pion suppression in nuclear collisions

The pion multiplicity per participating nucleon in central nucleus–nucleus collisions at the energies 2–15 AGeV is significantly smaller than in nucleon–nucleon interactions at the same collision energy. This effect of pion suppression is argued to appear due to the evolution of the system produced at the early stage of heavy–ion collisions towards a local thermodynamic equilibrium and further isentropic expansion. Received: 21 July 1997 / Revised version: 12 November 1997 / Published online: 26 February 1998     

Charged-particle multiplicity density at midrapidity in central Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[S(NN)] = 2.76 TeV

The first measurement of the charged-particle multiplicity density at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair √ S NN = 2.76 TeV is presented. For an event sample corresponding to the most central 5% of the hadronic cross section, the pseudorapidity density of primary charged particles at midrapidity is 1584 ± 4(stat) ± 76(syst), which corresponds to 8.3 ± 0.4(syst) per participating nucleon pair. This represents an increase of about a factor 1.9 relative to pp collisions at similar collision energies, and about a factor 2.2 to central Au-Au collisions at √ S NN = 2.76 TeV. This measurement provides the first experimental constraint for models of nucleus-nucleus collisions at LHC energies.     

Evidence for a Soft Nuclear Equation-of-State from Kaon Production in Heavy-Ion Collisions

The production of pions and kaons has been measured in 197Au+197Au collisions at beam energies from 0.6 to 1.5A GeV with the kaon spectrometer at SIS/GSI. The K+ meson multiplicity per nucleon is enhanced in Au+Au collisions by factors up to 6 relative to C+C reactions, whereas the corresponding pion ratio is reduced. The ratio of the K+ meson excitation functions for Au+Au and C+C collisions increases with decreasing beam energy. This behavior is expected for a soft nuclear equation-of-state.     

Search for deconfinement in NA49 at the CERN SPS

Experiment NA49 at the CERN SPS uses a large acceptance detector for a systematic study of particle yields and correlations in nucleus-nucleus, nucleon-nucleus and nucleon-nucleon collisions. Preliminary results for Pb+Pb collisions at 40, 80 and 158 A⋅GeV beam energy shown and compared to measurements at lower and higher energies.     

200A GeV硫打原子核反应中奇异压低的约化和奇异反重子产生

用事件产生器LUCIAE分析了200AGeV硫打原子核反应中p和Λ产额､横动量分布以及Λ/p比值的NA35数据,结果表明:NA35数据反映了极端相对论性核一核碰撞中青异压低与同能量的核子-核子碰撞相比有约化的现象;但是核-核碰撞中Λ/p比值趋向1,并不必然意味着夸克的味对称性.     

The excluded volume hadron gas model and pion production at the SPS

Experimental data for nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN SPS suggest that an ideal hadron gas model is unable to account simultaneously (same baryonic chemical potential and temperature at freeze-out) for the strange anti-baryon to baryon ratios and pion abundances. Using a thermodynamically consistent excluded volume model we examine possibilities to account for the observed excess of pions.     

Strange particle production in relativistic collisions of heavy ions

This review examines data on strange particle production in Pb + Pb collisions obtained in heavy ion experiments at CERN SPS. The yields of K, Λ, Ξ and Ω are considered, as well as their rapidity and transverse mass distributions, depending on the centrality of Pb + Pb collisions at SPS energies. Experimental results are compared with predictions of the statistical nuclear fireball and microscopic parton -string models. We discuss in detail the experimentally observed effect of strangeness enhancement in nucleus-nucleus collisions as compared to nucleon-nuclear interactions and its interpretation within the framework of various theoretical models. Also, we analyze the behavior of hyperon yields and nuclear modification factors in passing from SPS to RHIC energies.     

Pion production as a probe of the nuclear matter equation of state

It is shown that thermal and chemical equilibrium are approached during the high density stage in central nucleus-nucleus collisions and that the yield of produced pions is determined at that time. A chemical model with Rankine-Hugoniot compression is used to extract a nuclear matter equation of state from the observed pion yield assuming a partition of the internal energy per nucleon into thermal and compressional energy fractions, with only the former part contributing to particle production.     

Characteristics of particle production in high energy nuclear collisions: A model-based analysis

The present work pertains to the production of some very important negatively charged secondaries in lead-lead and gold-gold collision at AGS, SPS and RHIC energies. We would like to examine here the role of the particular version of Sequential Chain Model (SCM), which was applied widely in the past in analysing data on various high-energy hadronic collisions, in explaining now the latest findings on the features of particle production in the relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions. The agreement between the model of our choice and the measured data is found to be modestly satisfactory in cases of the most prominent and abundantly produced varieties of the secondaries in the above-stated two nuclear collisions.     

高能Cu+Cu碰撞中末态带电粒子赝快度分布的能量与对心度依赖性

利用Glauber模型,给出了核-核碰撞中的参与者数及二元核子-核子碰撞数与碰撞参数的解析关系,并以此为基础,在考虑到参与者由于多重碰撞而引起的能量损失效应后,通过有效二元核子-核子碰撞末态带电粒子赝快度分布的加权叠加,建立起了以碰撞参数为自变量的核-核碰撞末态带电粒子的赝快度分布函数,并用其分析了RHIC-PHOBOS合作组在不同能量与不同对心度的Cu+Cu碰撞中所做的实验测量。所得结果与实验符合得较好。     

Comment on entropy production in nuclear collisions

A recent analysis of the data for particle production in central nucleus-nucleus (AA) collisions finds an “enhancement” in particle multiplicities or entropy at the highest energies near 200A GeV (as compared to those at lower energies). This is interpreted within a relativistic photon gas model as an increase in the number of degrees of freedom, and the formation of the quark-gluon plasma between AGS and SPS energies is hypothesized. We find that particle multiplicities in A collisions also show an enhancement at large F, a nonlinear increase with the Fermi energy variable, . This suggests the possibility that the enhancement seen in AA collisions is also due to such a non-linearity in F. Received: 11 November 1997 / Published online: 10 March 1998     

Centrality dependence of the charged-particle multiplicity density at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[s(NN)] = 2.76 TeV

The centrality dependence of the charged-particle multiplicity density at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=2.76 TeV is presented. The charged-particle density normalized per participating nucleon pair increases by about a factor of 2 from peripheral (70%-80%) to central (0%-5%) collisions. The centrality dependence is found to be similar to that observed at lower collision energies. The data are compared with models based on different mechanisms for particle production in nuclear collisions.     

Strange baryons production and projectile fragmentation in p−A collisions at the AGS

Experiment 910 (E910) has studied proton-nucleus collisions at 12.3 and 17.5 GeV incident energies using a variety of targets. Centrality selection is provided via “grey” track multiplicity which can be statistically related to ν, the number of scatterings of the proton in the target nucleus. Previously published semi-inclusive measurements of Ν production are discussed and preliminary measurements of “leading” Ν production in 17.5 GeV p-Au collisions are presented as a function of ν. The data indicate that the probability for the projectile to fragment into a strange baryon increases significantly with increasing ν for ν≤3; an extrapolation of the E910 data to nucleus-nucleus collisions can reproduce most of the enhancement in Ν production observed in Pb-Pb collisions at 40, 80 and 160 A. GeV. Preliminary measurements of Ξ^? production in 17.5 GeV p-Au collisions show a rapid increase in yield with increasing ν. The data are discussed in the context of the Van Hove fragmentation model. Preliminary proton and pion spectra are presented for 12.3 GeV p-Be collisions. The data show a rapid degradation of outgoing proton momenta with increasing N _grey while only modest changes are observed in the pion fragmentation spectra.     

Indications for the onset of deconfinement in Pb+Pb collisions at the CERN SPS

Particle production in central Pb+Pb collisions was studied with the NA49 large acceptance spectrometer at the CERN SPS at beam energies of 20, 30, 40, 80 and 158 GeV per nucleon. A change of the energy dependence is observed around 30A GeV for the yields of pions and strange particles as well as for the shapes of the transverse mass spectra. The energy dependence of fluctuations and correlations shows no structure. At present only a reaction scenario with onset of deconfinement is able to reproduce the measurements.     

Unified approach to theJ/Ψ suppression and strangeness enhancement in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions

A picture of nuclear interactions at high energies (p _Lab100 GeV/c) is proposed, where the only essential difference between nucleon-neucleon and central nucleus-nucleus collisions is the size of the interaction zone. In both cases intermediate multi-parton systems are created, which achieve thermodynamical equilibrium with respect to characteristics of light quarks and gluons. The characteristics of heavier quarks are far from equilibrium ones in nucleon-nucleon collisions, but the degree of equilibration is substantially increased in central heavy-ion collisions. Therefore, the multi-parton systems produced in central nucleus-nucleus interactions can manifest themseleves as the quark-gluon plasma. A simple model based on this picture is formulated and confronted with the experimental data concerningJ/ suppression and strangeness yield enhancement, both revealed recently in central nucleus-nucleus collisions.This work was supported in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under grant He 1283/3-1     

Transverse mass distributions in central heavy-ion collisions at high energies

The transverse mass spectra of protons, pions, kaons, Lambda and Antilambda produced in cen- tral nucleus-nucleus collisions at high energies are described by using one-temperature and two-temperature emission pictures. The calculated results are compared and found to be in good agreement with the experimen- tal data of the E895, E866 and E917 Collaborations measured in central Au-Au collisions at the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) energies and the NA49 Collaboration measured in central Pb-Pb collisions at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) energies. It is demonstrated that the transverse mass distributions of protons, kaons, Lambda and Antilambda, except for Lambda hyperons produced in central Pb-Pb collisions at 158 A GeV, can be described by using the one-temperature emission picture, and for pions, we need to use the two-temperature emission picture.