Antiproton production in nucleon-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN-SPS

A model for antiproton production in nucleon-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at 200 GeV per nucleon, based on the Wounded Nucleon Model is developed. The predictions are compared to published nucleon-nucleus and sulphur-nucleus data. The results suggest the presence of similar antiproton production processes in nucleon-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions near midrapidity.     

Dimuon and charm production in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN-SPS

Muon pair production in p-A, S-U and Pb-Pb collisions has been studied by the NA38 and NA50 collaborations at the CERN SPS. In this paper we present an analysis of the dimuon invariant mass region between the and the J/. In p-A collisions we find that, after the subtraction of the combinatorial background due to and K decays, the superposition of dimuons from semi-leptonic decays of D mesons and from the Drell-Yan process reproduces well the measured mass and transverse momentum spectra. The yield of open charm dimuons required to fit our data leads to a charm production cross section in good agreement with previous measurements. A linear extrapolation of the p-A sources with the product of the mass numbers of the projectile and target nuclei, , underestimates the dimuon yield measured in S-U and Pb-Pb collisions. The excess increases with the number of participant nucleons, and the ratio between the observed dimuon yield and the expected sources reaches a factor 2 for central Pb-Pb interactions. The kinematical distributions of the measured dimuon excess are compatible with those expected from the open charm contribution. Received: 20 December 1999 / Revised version: 4 February 2000 / Published online: 14 April 2000     

Antiproton production in heavy-ion collisions at subthreshold energies

Within the framework of the Lanzhou quantum molecular dynamics model,the deep subthreshold antiproton production in heavy-ion collisions has been investigated thoroughly.The elastic scattering,annihilation and charge exchange reactions associated with antiproton channels are implemented in the model.The attractive antiproton potential extracted from the G-parity transformation of nucleon selfenergies reduces the threshold energies in meson-baryon and baryon-baryon collisions,and consequently enhances the antiproton yields to some extent.The calculated invariant spectra are consistent with the available experimental data.The primordial antiproton yields increase with the mass number of the colliding system.However,annihilation reactions reduce the antiproton production which becomes independent of the colliding partners.Anti-flow phenomena of antiprotons correlated with the mean field potential and annihilation mechanism is found by comparing them with the proton flows.Possible experiments at the high-intensity heavy-ion accelerator facility(HIAF) in China are discussed.     

Higgs-boson production in nucleus-nucleus collisions

Cross-section calculations are presented for the production of intermediate-mass Higgs bosons produced in ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions via two-photon fusion. The calculations are performed in position space using Baur's method for folding together the Weizsacker-Williams virtual-photon spectra of the two colliding nuclei. It is found that two-photon fusion in nucleus-nucleus collisions is a plausible way of finding intermediate-mass Higgs bosons at the Superconducting Super Collider or the CERN Large Hadron Collider.     

On the photon production in nucleus-nucleus collisions at high energy

A modified Landau hydrodynamical model is applied to study hard thermal photon production in central heavy-ion collisions at LHC, RHIC and SPS energies. It is shown that the phase transition from quark-gluon plasma into hadrons in consequence of the thermodynamical expansion is close to the second order phase transition if a resonance production is taken into account. Hard direct photon emission is also investigated with consideration of nuclear shadowing effect on structure function of quarks and gluons. Also π^π photon background is investigated. It is demonstrated that at the LHC energy photon yield from the quark-gluon plasma in the photon transversal momentumk _⊥ range from 5 to 25 GeV/c exceeds both the background and the direct photon yield. This conclusion may be important for the quark-gluon plasma diagnostic aims. It is also shown that for the LHC energy the thermal photon yield in the present model essentially exceeds this yield obtained in the Bjorken scaling model.     

Dilepton production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at SPS energies

Dilepton production in proton- and nucleus-induced reactions is studied in the relativistic transport model using initial conditions determined by the string dynamics from RQMD. It is found that both the CERES and HELIOS-3 data for dilepton spectra in proton-nucleus reactions can be well described by the ‘conventional’ mechanism of Dalitz decay and direct vector meson decay. However, to provide a quantitative explanation of the observed dilepton spectra in central S+Au and S+W collisions requires contributions other than these direct decays. Introducing a decrease of vector meson masses in hot and dense medium, we find that these heavy-ion data can also be satisfactorily explained. This agrees with our earlier conclusions based on a fire-cylinder model. We also give predictions for Pb+Au collisions at 160 GeV/nucleon using current CERES mass resolution and acceptance.     

Rescattering production of dileptons in nucleus-nucleus collisions

We present a space-time formulation for the rescattering of hard partons produced in primary QCD subcollisions within a nucleus-nucleus collision. As an application we calculate the rescattering rate for dilepton production in 100 GeV/A+100 GeV/A uranium-uranium collisions.     

Particle production in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions

Recent data on the production of pions and strange particles at the Bevalac and Synchrophasotron accelerators are reviewed, covering pion spectra and multiplicity distributions, λ, K⁺ and K⁻ yields and spectra, and Λ polarization. Emphasis is placed on recent progress in determining the equation of state of compressed fireball nuclear matter from the observed pion yield in central collisions. Further, the information derived from apparent spectral temperatures is critically examined, along with a discussion of thermal and chemical equilibrium attainment in the reactions, as revealed by particle spectra and yields.     

A consistent parametrisation for the production rates of negatively charged hadrons and neutral strange particles in nucleon-nucleon,nucleon-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions

A parametrisation of negative hadron and neutral strange particle production was developed which consistently describes presently available data from nucleon-nucleon, nucleon-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at a beam energy of 200 GeV per nucleon. Average multiplicities of negative hadrons are found to be proportional to the number of wounded nucleons, averageK _s ⁰ multiplicities proportional to the number of wounded quarks, and average and multiplicities proportional to the number of wounded quarks plus an additional contribution proportional to the number of interactions of secondary produced particles. Predictions are given for lead-lead collisions.On leave from Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Zagreb, Croatia     

Strange particle production in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC energy regions

PACIAE, a parton and hadron cascade model, is utilized to systematically investigate strange particle production and strangeness enhancement in Au＋Au collisions and in Pb＋Pb collisions with the √SNN = 200 GeV at the RHIC and 2.76 TeV at the LHC, respectively. The experimental results at different centralities, using data from the STAR collaboration and the ALICE collaboration, are well described by the PACIAE model. This may represent the importance of the parton and hadron rescatterings, as well as the reduction mechanism for strange quark suppression, that are implemented in the PACIAE model.     

Strange particle production in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC energy regions

PACIAE, a parton and hadron cascade model, is utilized to systematically investigate strange particle production and strangeness enhancement in Au+Au collisions and in Pb+Pb collisions with the √s_NN=200 GeV at the RHIC and 2.76 TeV at the LHC, respectively. The experimental results at different centralities, using data from the STAR collaboration and the ALICE collaboration, are well described by the PACIAE model. This may represent the importance of the parton and hadron rescatterings, as well as the reduction mechanism for strange quark suppression, that are implemented in the PACIAE model.     

Microscopic theory of photon production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions

The production of energetic photons in medium-energy proton and heavy-ion induced reactions is studied on the basis of incoherent nucleon-nucleon collisions. For this purpose we first evaluate covariantly the photon production from proton-neutron collisions in a vector (ω) and scalar meson (σ) exchange model with coupling constants given by the M2Y G-matrix in the nonrelativistic limit. We furthermore follow the proton-neutron collisional history by means of a phase-space simulation based on the Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck approach for proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions adding up incoherently the yields from each individual collision. The satisfactory agreement we obtain in comparison with experimental data allows to conclude that energetic photons predominantly arise from proton-neutron bremsstrahlung during the early stage of the collision.     

Muon pair production in very high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions

Characteristics of muon pair production in very high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions are discussed. Particular attention is given to comparing the rate of muon pairs produced from thermalized quark-gluon matter to that of pairs produced via the usual Drell-Yan mechanism. The thermal rate is at least of the same order of magnitude as the direct Drell-Yan rate and will certainly dominate whenx _F for the pair approaches 1. Beyondx _F =1 the thermal rate is also substantial. This region is particularly easily accessible in fixed target experiments.     

Watson representation for the amplitude of lepton-pair production in nucleus-nucleus collisions

An expression for the amplitude of lepton pair production in nucleus-nucleus collisions is obtained in terms of the amplitudes of lepton-nucleus scattering. By using this representation an approximate compact expression for this amplitude valid to terms of the order (Zα)⁵ is obtained.     

Peculiarities of Λ hyperon and π−-meson production in nucleus-nucleus collisions at high energy

The analysis of the data on the production of Λ hyperons and π^- in⁴He?Li,¹²C?C,¹²C?Ne and¹⁶O?Ne at 4.5 A GeV/c and¹²C?C collisions at 4.2 A GeV/c are presented. Kinematical features of Λ's are shown to depend on the collision centrality in contrast to the stable behaviour of the pion characteristics. The correlation between the characteristics of Λ's and accompanying pions is observed. The effects seem to be incompatible with the intranuclear cascade approach. The data suggest the formation of a fully stopped and thermalized hot source in central nucleus-nucleus collisions, in which Λ hyperons are produced.