Low mass lepton pair production and pion dynamics in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions

The production of lepton pairs with low invariant mass as probes for the pion dynamics in relativistic nuclear collisions is discussed in some detail. We emphasize the implications of a possible large positive pion chemical potential for the production rate of lepton pairs. We find a strong enhancement in the low invariant mass region, \(2m_\pi \leqslant M_{\mu ^ + \mu ^ - } \leqslant 600\,MeV\) , for lepton pairs which are produced via the annihilation of pions in the hot and dense collision zone. Various sources of background which could mask this enhancement are discussed in some detail. We present and compare calculations for dilepton mass spectra based on different nuclear collision scenarios. It is found that the di-muon mass spectrum can serve as a useful probe to distinguish between these different scenarios.     

Gluino pair production in high-energy photon collisions

We study the potential of high-energy photon colliders for the production of gluino pairs within the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). In this model, the process is mediated by quark/squark box diagrams with enhancements for up-type quarks/squarks from their larger charges and for third generation squarks from their large mass splittings, generated by the mixing of left- and right-handed states. Far above threshold and in scenarios with very heavy squarks, resolved photons can contribute significantly at tree level. Taking into account the laser photon backscattering spectrum, electron and laser beam polarization effects, and current mass exclusion limits, we find that gluino pair production in high-energy photon collisions should be visible over large regions of the MSSM parameter space, contrary to what has been found for e⁺e^- annihilation. In addition, the cross section rises rather steeply, so that a gluino mass determination with a precision of a few GeV should be feasible for a wide range of post-LEP benchmark points.Arrival of the final proofs: 24 June 2003     

Lepton pair production by high-energy neutrino-hadron collisions

Using O(2, 1) techniques and the helicity formalism, the dilepton mass spectrum for muon pair and electron-muon production is calculated in standard V ? A and Salam-Weinberg type weak interactions to order α²G².     

On lepton pair production in proton-antiproton collisions at intermediate energies

The lepton pair production via the quark-antiquark annihilation subprocess in collisions of beam antiproton with the proton target at E _beam = 14 GeV is studied on the basis of the event sample simulated by PYTHIA6 generator. Different kinematical variables which may be useful for the design of the muon system and the electromagnetic calorimeter of the detector of PANDA experiment at FAIR, as well as for the study of proton structure functions in the available x-Q ² kinematical region, are considered. It is also argued that the measurement of the total transverse momentum of a lepton-antilepton system may provide important information about the intrinsic transverse momentum 〈k _T 〉 that appears due to the Fermi motion of quarks inside the nucleon. Another interesting possibility is the measurement of the production rate of two or three lepton pairs in one event that can give the information about the rate of multiple quarks interactions and the proton space structure. The problems due to the presence of fake leptons that appear from meson decays, as well as due to the contribution of background QCD processes and minimum bias events, are also discussed. The set of cuts which allows one to separate the events with the signal lepton pairs from different kind of background events is proposed. The article is published in the original.     

Low-mass lepton pair production in Pb-Au collisions at 40 A.GeV

The CERES/NA45 experiment at the CERN SPS has previously measurede ⁺ e ^- pair production in 160 A.GeV Pb-Au collisions. In the mass regionm > 02 GeV/c², an enhancement of 2.7±04(stat.)±0.5(syst.) compared to the expectation from known hadronic decay sources was observed. In the 40 A.GeV data taken in 1999, an enhancement is again found; a preliminary analysis gives an even larger value of 50 ±13(stat.). The results are compared to theoretical model calculations based on π⁺π^- annihilation with a modified ρ-propagator; they may be related to chiral symmetry restoration.     

Strange baryon production in heavy ion collisions

The rapidity distribution of Λ and ?Λ produced in nucleus-nucleus collisions at CERN energies is studied in the framework of an independent string model — with quark-antiquark as well as diquark-antidiquark pairs in the nucleon sea. It is shown that, besides the Λ-?Λ pair production resulting from the fragmentation of sea diquarks, final state interactions of co-moving secondaries π + N → K + Λ and ?N → K → ?Λ are needed in order to reproduce the data. Predictions for Pb-Pb collisions are presented.     

Model dependence of the electromagnetic corrections to lepton pair production in electron-positron collisions

The electromagnetic radiative corrections toe ⁺ e ^? -annihilation into lepton pairs are calculated including hard photon bremsstrahlung in the standard and extended electroweak models. For \(\sqrt s \) = 38 GeV we find for the standard model, that the radiative corrections toZ-exchange reduce the charge asymmetry up to 1% which is mainly caused by the virtual and soft photon parts of the corrections. For models with a higher forward-backward asymmetry the situation is found to be quite similar.     

Neutral meson production in relativistic heavy ion collisions

The production of ⁰ and mesons has been studied in the reactions²⁰Ne +Al at 350 MeV/u and⁴⁰Ar + Ca at 1.0 GeV/u. Rapidity distributions and transverse momentum spectra have been measured and are compared to thermal distributions.Dedicated to Prof. Dr. P. Kienle on the occasion of his 60th birthday     

Bremsstrahlung pair production in relativistic heavy ion collision

We calculate production of electron- and muon-pairs by the bremsstrahlung process in hadron collisions and compare it with the dominant two-photon process. Results for the total cross section are given for proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions at energies of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Received: 4 March 1997 / Revised version: 8 July 1997 / Published online: 20 February 1998     

Study of photon-tagged jet events in high-energy heavy ion collisions with CMS

The energy loss of fast partons traversing the strongly interacting matter produced in high energy nuclear collisions is one of the most interesting observables to probe the nature of the produced medium. The collisional and radiative energy loss of the partons will modify the fragmentation functions depending on the path length in the medium. Pb + Pb collisions at  GeV at the LHC will allow detailed measurements of the in-medium modifications of fragmentation functions of parton initiated jets, using the γ-jet channel. Since the photon does not strongly interact with the medium, the initial transverse energy of the fragmenting parton can be related to the photon transverse energy. This in turn allows for precision studies of the fragmentation function underlying these jets.     

Abrasion-ablation model for neutron production in heavy ion collisions

In intermediate energy nucleus-nucleus collisions, neutron production at forward angles is observed to occur with a Gaussian shape that is centered near the beam energy and extends to energies well above that of the beam. This paper presents an abrasion-ablation model for making quantitative predictions of the neutron spectrum. To describe neutrons produced from the abrasion step of the reaction where the projectile and target overlap, we use the Glauber model and include effects of final-state interactions. We then use the prefragment mass distribution from abrasion with a statistical evaporation model to estimate the neutron spectrum resulting from ablation. Measurements of neutron production from Ne and Nb beams are compared with calculations, and good agreement is found.     

Subthreshold K production in high energy heavy ion collisions

We show that an important contribution to subthreshold K⁻ production in high energy heavy ion collision is the strangeness exchange reactions Yπ→K---N between the hyperons and pions initially produced in the collision. Estimates are given for the number of K⁻ produced via this mechanism and it accounts for a large fraction of the experimental observation.