Low mass dimuon production in proton-nucleus collisions with the NA60 apparatus

During the June 2002 run NA60 collected around 600 000 dimuon triggers in proton-nucleus collisions at 400 GeV. We show that the collected dimuon mass spectra can be understood in terms of known sources. The specific target setup, consisting of Beryllium, Indium and Lead targets, simultaneously exposed to the beam, allowed us to study the nuclear dependence of the production cross-section of the and resonances. The elementary nucleon-nucleon production cross-sections at 400 GeV for the , and mesons are also presented. By using the -Dalitz decay, dominating the mass range below 450 MeV, we, furthermore, extracted the production cross-section and its nuclear dependence. The results are discussed in the framework of previous measurements, mostly obtained in different decay channels, performed by NA27, HELIOS-1 and CERES-TAPS. Arrival of the final proofs: 1 July 2005 PACS: 25.75.Dw, 25.75.Nq     

Study of neutrino-indiced dimuon events in gargamelle at CERN SPS

This letter reports a study of 117 opposite-sign and 41 like-sign dimuons, in a wide-band neutrino exposure of Gargamelle at CERN SPS. No signal is found in the μ^?μ^? channel. The μ^?μ⁺ channel is found to be dominated by D-meson production and decay. There is evidence in these events for missing energy which may be interpreted as an unseen neutrino. The V⁰ multiplicities, K⁰/event=0.53_?0.20^+0.25and Λ/event=0.03_?0.04^+0.06 show only evidence for charmed meson production. Information on the D-meson fragmentation function is presented. In a specific model, a rate $\text{σ}\text{(μ}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{μ}{}^{\mathrm{+}}\text{)}\text{σ(μ}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{)}\text{=(0.72±0.14×10}{}^{\mathrm{?2}}$ is found, independent of the energy. An investigation of these events for visible D-decays sets a limit on the life-time τ_D<0.8 ×10^?12s at 90% C.L.     

Charm dimuon production in neutrino-nucleon interactions in the NOMAD experiment

We present our new measurement of charm dimuon production in neutrino-iron interactions based upon the full statistics collected by the NOMAD experiment. After background subtraction we observe 15,340 charm dimuon events, providing the largest sample currently available. The analysis exploits the large inclusive charged current sample (about 9 million events after all analysis cuts) to constrain the total systematic uncertainty to ∼2%. The extraction of strange sea and charm production parameters is also discussed.     

Low mass dilepton production in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Mechanisms of formation for low mass dilepton excess observed in the relativistic heavy ion collisions are considered. The experimental data are reviewed. In addition to discussing the standard mechanisms of dilepton production specific to the collisions of relativistic nuclei (the pion annihilation in the hadron-gas stage and the quark-antiquark annihilation in the quark-gluon phase), the mechanism of dilepton production in the mixed phase of nuclear matter is proposed, and its contribution to the low mass dilepton spectrum is estimated. In addition, the first-order corrections in the strong-interaction coupling constant to the dilepton production in the parton medium and the nonperturbative approaches are considered.     

Probing the medium-induced energy loss of bottom quarks by dimuon production in heavy ion collisions at LHC

The potential of coming experiments on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to observe the rescattering and energy loss of heavy quarks in the dense matter created in heavy ion collisions is discussed. We analyze the sensitivity of high-mass pairs from semileptonic decays and secondary 's from single B decays to the medium-induced bottom quark energy loss. Received: 18 December 2000 / Revised version: 17 May 2001 / Published online: 6 July 2001     

Low mass dilepton production at RHIC energies

Recent results on low mass dilepton measurements from the PHENIX experiment are reported. Invariant mass spectra of are measured for the first time in Au-Au collisions at GeV in Run2. In d-Au collisions, the yields and M_T slopes of both and are measured. Both results are consistent with each other within errors. In the future, a Hadron Blind Detector will be installed in PHENIX which will enhance our capabilities of rejecting external photon conversions and Dalitz pairs, that will result in a significant reduction of the large combinatorial background. ^* Deceased Spokesperson     

Freeze-out in relativistic heavy ion collisions at SPS

The freeze-out conditions in the light (S+S) and heavy (Pb+Pb) colliding systems at 160 AGeV/c are analyzed within the microscopic Quark Gluon String Model (QGSM). Even for the most heavy systems particle emission takes place from the whole space-time domain available for the system evolution, but not from the thin “freeze-out hypersurface”, adopted in fluid dynamical models. Pions are continuously emitted from the whole volume of the reaction and reflect the main trends of the system evolution. Nucleons in Pb+Pb collisions initially come from the surface region. For both reactions there is a separation of the elastic and inelastic freeze-out.     

Low mass dilepton production at ultrarelativistic energies

Dilepton production in pp and Au+Au nucleus–nucleus collisions at as well as in In+In and Pb+Au at is studied within the microscopic HSD transport approach. A comparison to the data from the PHENIX Collaboration at RHIC shows that standard in-medium effects of the ρ,ω vector mesons—compatible with the NA60 data for In+In at and the CERES data for Pb+Au at —do not explain the large enhancement observed in the invariant mass regime from 0.2 to 0.5 GeV in Au+Au collisions at relative to pp collisions.     

Angular distributions in the dimuon hadronic production at 150 GeV/c

From π^- interactions at 150 GeV/c on a heavy target, we present the final analysis of the dimuon decay angular distribution in the mass interval 4.5–8.5 GeV/c². Results are presented and discussed in various reference frames and are also given in terms of the density matrix elements. Finally the possible contribution of higher-twist effects at largex ₁ is discussed; we find that our data are not compatible with higher twist contributions as proposed by the Berger and Brodsky Model.     

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.     

Projectile spectator proton production in 84Kr-emulsion interactions at 1.7 A GeV

The multiplicity distribution of projectile protons and multiplicity correlations between black particles, grey particles, shower particles, compound particles, heavily ionized track particles, projectile helium fragments and projectile spectator protons in <'84>Kr-emulsion collisions at 1.7 A GeV are investigated. It is found that the projectile spectator proton multiplicity distribution becomes broader with increasing target mass. The average multiplicity of shower particles and compound particles strongly depends on the number of projectile spectator protons, but the average multiplicity of black particles, grey particles and heavily ionized track particles weakly depends on the number of projectile spectator protons. The average multiplicity of projectile helium fragments increases linearly with increasing numbers of projectile spectator protons. Finally, the multiplicity distribution of projectile spectator protons obeys a KNO type of scaling law.     

K + production in proton and deuteron induced reactions at subthreshold energies

The production ofK ⁺ mesons in proton-nucleus and deuteron-nucleus collisions is analyzed with respect to one-step nucleon-nucleon (NN → N ΛK ⁺),Δ- nucleon (ΔN → N Λ K⁺) and two-step pion-nucleon (πN → K ⁺ Λ) production channels on the basis of experimental ground state momentum distributions and free on-shell production processes. Whereas forK ⁺ production in proton-nucleus reactions the secondary channelπN clearly dominates at subthreshold energies, meson and nucleon induced channels are of similar magnitude in deuteron-nucleus reactions. Contrary to nucleus-nucleus collisions theΔ induced reaction channels are found to be of minor importance. The experimental differentiation of the underlying microscopic reaction channels appears possible via differential proton —K ⁺ coincidence measurements as shown in detail by the microscopic simulations including proton rescattering.     

Soft quark annihilation contribution to the low mass dimuon production in high-p T jet events

The soft quark annihilation contribution to the low-mass, unlike-sign dimuon production in high-p _T jet events, which has recently been observed by the UA1 collaboration at the CERN protonantiproton collider, is estimated within a model that successfully describes the anomalous dilepton production in soft hadroni? collisions. A method is proposed for disentangling the various production mechanisms, based on comparing the mean multiplicity of hadrons accompanying a dimuon with a quantity calculated from the lowest multiplicity moments in events without dimuons.     

Strange hadron production in heavy ion collisions from SPS to RHIC

Strange particles have been a very important observable in the search for a deconfined state of strongly interacting matter, the quark–gluon plasma (QGP), which is expected to be formed in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. We review the main experimental observations made at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) at CERN, Geneva, and at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The large amount of recently collected data allows for a comprehensive study of strangeness production as a function of energy and system size. We review results on yields, transverse mass and rapidity spectra, as well as elliptic flow. The measurements are interpreted in the context of various theoretical concepts and their implications are discussed. Of particular interest is the question whether strange particles are in any way sensitive to a partonic phase. Finally, a compilation of experimental data is provided.     

Photon production in heavy-ion collisions at SPS energies

Single photon spectra in heavy-ion collisions at SPS energies are studied in the relativistic transport model that incorporates self-consistently the change of hadron masses in dense matter. We separate the total photon spectrum into “background” arising from the radiative decays of π⁰ and η mesons, and the “thermal” one from other sources. For the latter we include contributions from radiative decays of ρ, ω, η′, and a₁, radiative decays of baryon resonances, as well as two-body processes such as ππ → ργ and πρ → πγ. It is found that more than 95% of all photons come from the decays of π⁰ and η mesons, while the thermal photons account for less than 5% of the total photon yield. The thermal photon spectra in our calculations with either free or in-medium meson masses do not exceed the upper bound set by the experimental measurement of the WA80 Collaboration.