Subthreshold pion production from nucleus-nucleus collisions around 100 MeV/nucleon

Several global variables were tested with the aim to determine the impact parameter in nucleus-nucleus collisions producing pions at incident energies around 100 MeV/nucleon. The experimental set-up includes the MEDEA multidetector, part of which is used as a ⁰ spectrometer, and an additional hodoscope of plastic scintillators to cover very forward angles. A statistical model was used to generate bothinclusive and pion-triggered events. Selection ofwell measured events was made through the measured total parallel momentum. Among the different global variables which were tested, the average parallel velocity was seen to give the best correlation with the impact parameter.     

Light-particle emission versus evaporation residue formation in collisions of40Ar onnatCa at 30 MeV/u

The closely associated phenomena of preequilibrium emission and evaporation residue formation in fusion-like reactions were studied in central collisions between⁴⁰Ar and^natCa at 30 MeV/u. Heavy reaction products were taken in coincidence with neutrons and light charged particles. The preequilibrium neutron data agree very well with predictions of a quantal phase-space model which, in addition to the mean field, takes two-body collisions properly into account. Preequilibrium emission ends in thermally equilibrated hot nuclei with an average excitation energy of about 6 MeV/u. The combined results show a striking interrelation between the missing mass and light-particle multiplicities: the mass difference between the full compound mass and the observed residues can be explained quantitatively by the emission of only neutrons and light charged particles withZ2 during the entire course of energy dissipation.Supported by the German Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie (BMFT) under contract 06 HD 983I     

Hadron production inpBe interactions at 14.6 GeV/c

Invariant cross sections for the production of ^±,K ^±,p, andd inpBe interactions at 14.6 GeV/c are well reproduced by calculations carried out in the framework of the Rossendorf collision model.Communicated by: F. Lenz     

Energy dependence of collective flow of neutrons and protons in197Au+197Au collisions

We investigate the beam energy dependence of neutron and proton squeeze-out in collisions of¹⁹⁷Au+¹⁹⁷Au atE/A=400—800 MeV. The azimuthal anisotropy that describes the enhanced emission of mid-rapidity neutrons perpendicular to the reaction plane rises strongly with the transverse momentum of the neutrons. This dependence of the azimuthal anisotropy follows a universal curve — independent of beam energy — if the neutron momenta are measured in fractions of the projectile momentum per mass unit. Analogously, the kinetic energy spectra of mid-rapidity neutrons exhibit a universal behaviour as a function of the kinetic energy of the projectile. The members of the FOPI-collaboration: J.P. Alard, Z. Basrak, N. Bastid, I.M. Belayev, M. Bini, R. Bock, A. Buta, R. aplar, C. Cerruti, N. Cindro, J.P. Coffin, M. Crouau, P. Dupieux, J. Erö, Z.G. Fan, P. Fintz, Z. Fodor, R. Freifelder, L. Fraysse, S. Frolov, A. Gobbi, Y. Grigorian, G. Guillaume, N. Herrmann, K.D. Hildenbrand, S. Hölbling, O. Houari, S.C. Jeong, M. Jorio, F. Jundt, J. Kecskemeti, P. Koncz, Y. Korchagin, R. Kotte, M. Krämer, C. Kuhn, I. Legrand, A. Lebedev, C. Maguire, V. Manko, T. Matulewicz, G. Mgebrishvili, J. Mösner, D. Moisa, G. Montarou, P. Morel, W. Neubert, A. Olmi, G. Pasquali, D. Pelte, M. Petrovici, G. Poggi, F. Rami, W. Reisdorf, A. Sadchikov, D. Schüll, Z. Seres, B. Sikora, V. Simion, S. Smolyankin, U. Sodan, N. Taccetti, K. Teh, R. Tezkratt, M. Trzaska, M.A. Vasiliev, P. Wagner, J.P. Wessels, T. Wienold, Z. Wilhelmi, D. Wohlfarth, A.V. Zhilin.     

Pion-source geometry deduced from soft-pion interferometry in heavy-ion collisions at 650 A MeV

We report transverse,R _T , and longitudinal,R _L , source sizes extracted from two-pion interferometry analysis in the Au+Au and Nb + Nb interactions at 650 A MeV. For the Nb+Nb interactions, both,R _T andR _L , do not exceed the niobium nucleus radius. In the case of Au+Au collisions, the transverse size is larger than the longitudinal one being about 12 fm for the selection ofP ⁺ < 120=" mev/c.=" we=" also=" corroborate=" the=" existence=" of=" the=" previously=" reported=" specific=" three-pion=">One of us (T.S.) wishes to thank Professor M.I. Podgoretsky and Professor R.M. Weiner for interesting discussions and comments. We also wish to acknowledge remarks of Dr. B. Lörstad.     

Production of helium fragments in197Au-emulsion collisions at 10.6 A GeV

We present a systematic analysis on the helium projectile fragments produced from 10.6 A GeV¹⁹⁷Auemulsion interactions in an experiment conducted at the Brookhaven AGS. Total charge changing and partial production cross-sections are measured experimentally on the basis of helium multiplicity. The multiplicity distribution of helium fragments which are produced collectively obey a KNO scaling. The transverse momentum distribution of these particles indicates that they are produced from two different independent sources.We are thankful to the BNL technical staff and specially to Dr. D. Beavis for his help in the exposure of emulsion stacks. Thanks are due to Profs. Y. Takahashi and G. Romano for their help in the preparation and development of the emulsion stacks. We appreciate the discussions with Prof. H. Stocker and J. Aichelin. This work was supported by D.O.E. under Grant No. DE-FGO2-90ER 40566.     

Partition of excitation energy between reaction products in heavy ion collisions

In the single-particle approach a partition of the excitation energy between the reaction products in deep inelastic collisions of heavy ions are investigated. The role of the particle-hole excitations and the nucleon exchange is considered. The ratio of the projectile excitation energy to the total excitation energy for the reactions²³⁸U(1468 MeV)+¹²⁴Sn,²³⁸U(1398 MeV)+¹¹⁰Pd,⁵⁶Fe(505MeV)+¹⁶⁵Ho,⁷⁴Ge (629 MeV)+¹⁶⁵Ho and⁶⁸Ni(880 MeV)+¹⁹⁷Au is calculated. The results of calculations are in good agreement with the experimental data.We are grateful to Dr. N.V. Antonenko for valuable discussions. This work was supported partly by the Russian Minister for Education and Research under the Grant N2-61-13-28.     

Prompt fission induced by antiproton annihilation at rest on heavy nuclei

Antiproton induced fission probabilities of U²³⁸, Bi²⁰⁹, Pb²⁰⁸ and Au¹⁷⁷ are reported together with the mass distribution of the fission fragments in the U²³⁸ and Bi²⁰⁹ cases. The charged particles multiplicities observed in co-incidence with fission have, also, been measured for U and Bi and are presented.Dedicated to Peter Armbruster on the occasion of his 60th birthday in recognition of his important contribution to modern Nuclear Physics     

Mass and charge flow in the reaction 7.1 MeV/u197Au+63Cu

Mass-yield and angular-distribution data are presented for products from the reaction of 7.1 MeV/ ¹⁹⁷Au with⁶³Cu. With help from information derived from the latter, the former are classified into components corresponding to quasielastic transfer (580±80 mb), deep-inelastic transfer plus quasifission (1300±130 mb), fusionfission (195 mb), and sequential fission (195±45 mb). The fusion excitation function calculated with the Dynamic Capture model standard parameter set reproduces our deduced fusion-fission cross section well. Moreover, using this cross section as well as additional published data for the same reaction system, we extract ans-wave fusion-barrier shift (extra push) for this system of 35±7 MeV, which is in good agreement with the systematics derived from other fusion-barrier shifts which have been reported in the literature. Lastly, support is found for the Dissipative Diabatic Dynamics model prediction that dynamically-hindered fusion trajectories are reflected into quasielastic channels.Research supported by the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie under contract number 06 MR 553     

Transverse energy distributions in participant number model for ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions

The transverse energy distribution in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions has been obtained as a convolution over the number of projectile and target participants. The latter is computed using the geometrical overlap model as a function of impact parameter. The data from 10 A GeV to 200 A GeV heavy ion beams on various targets in different pseudo-rapidity domains have been successfully described.     

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     

Nuclear and electromagnetic fragmentation of 2.25-TeV197Au nuclei

We report the first measurement of the total charge-loss cross section _tot=_em+_nuc and partial cross sections (for Z=1, 2, ..., 9) of 11.4 A GeV¹⁹⁷Au nuclei in various targets. The large Coulomb barrier for Au reduces the electromagnetic contribution _em in a Pb target to only 18% of _nuc, compared with 70% for 14.5 A GeV²⁸Si and 120% for 200 A GeV³²S. With _em taken to be Z _T ^1.8 , _nuc can be fitted with _nuc=(A _P ^1/3 +A _T ^1/3 –b)², with b=0.83 and =59 mb, essentially the same as found at energies of 1 to 2 A GeV. Electromagnetic partial cross sections for Z=1 exceed 40 mb in the Pb, Sn, Cu, and Fe targets and are substantial for larger values ofZ in the heavier targets.We are indebted to D. Beavis and the staff of the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory for producing the beam of 11.4 A GeV Au ions, to D. Snowden-Ifft for his efforts in developing the automated scanning system, and to S. Hirzebruch for a useful discussion. This work was supported in part by the Office of Energy Research, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, Division of High Energy Physics, of the Department of Energy under contract No. DEAC03-76SF00098.     

Competition between binary reactions and fusion in heavy-ion collisions at the Coulomb barrier

Mass and charge distributions for binary reaction channels have been measured for the reactions⁸⁶Kr with⁷⁶Ge,¹⁰⁴Ru and¹³⁰Te at the Coulomb barrier using chemical separations and-ray spectroscopy. These systems span the region where dynamical hindrance to complete fusion sets in. The binary reactions can be subdivided into two components associated withi) reflection from the outer potential barrier (quasielastic), andii) reseparation after passing the barrier (complex reactions). The sum of complex-reaction channels and evaporation residues from complete fusion can be reproduced by a barrier passing calculation. The fraction of the barrier passing flux leading to reseparation increases from 26±10% for the lightest system to more than 90% for the heaviest system. The data indicate that fusion hindrance is primarily caused by reseparation shortly after passage of the barrier before Swiatecki's conditional saddlepoint is overcome, resulting in partitions close to the entrance channel configuration. In addition, for the heaviest system, a quasifission component representing somewhat less than 20% of the barrier-passing flux was observed. From the missing masses of fragment pairs we can deduce that the reseparating complex-reaction products have kinetic energies well below the fusion barrier and share the excitation energy in a way similar to the sawtooth-like curve known from low-energy fission. The quasielastic, predominantly one- and two-nucleon transfer channels, have strongly varying cross sections for the three systems despite similar effectiveQ-values. A systematics of one-neutron transfer cross sections at the Coulomb barrier is established and shown to differ considerably from the smooth behaviour observed at energies 20–30% above the barrier. The connection to nuclear polarization phenomena and orbit matching is pointed out.Nuclear reactions:⁷⁶Ge,¹⁰⁴Ru,¹³⁰Te(⁸⁶Kr, X).E=3.22 MeV/u, (3.64) 3.84 MeV/u, 3.96 MeV/u; enriched targets; catcher foil technique, chemical separations,-ray spectroscopy; deduced mass and charge distributions for binary reactions; competition with complete fusion     

Strangeness production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Kaon production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is studied. Particular attention is paid to situations in which high densities are obtained, such as in the Brookhaven AGS experiments with 14.6 GeV/nucleon Si on Au. Because of the explicit chiral-symmetry breaking terms in chiral Langrangians, kaons acquire an effective mass m _K ^* which goes to zero at the critical baryon density. Well before such densities, m _K ^* is sufficiently reduced to greatly facilitate kaon production through processes like K¯K. Previous expressions for the decreasing kaon mass were arrived at by linear chiral perturbation theory. Whereas we cannot systematically proceed to higher order, we use physical models to suggest how relevant quantities will behave in higher order. We present arguments that m _K ^* effectively goes to zero in the present AGS experiments.Supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy Grant No. DE-FG02-88ER40388     

Momentum distributions of projectile fragments produced in the cold and hot fragmentation of relativistic136Xe and197Au projectiles

The longitudinal-momentum distributions of projectile fragments from 0.8 A GeV¹³⁶Xe and 1 A GeV¹⁹⁷Au projectiles impinging on targets of beryllium and aluminium, respectively, have been measured using the projectile-fragment separator FRS at GSI. Different momentum distributions have been found for two different classes of fragmentation processes: the abundant hot fragmentation with several nucleons evaporated from the prefragments, and the rare cold fragmentation with only protons removed from the projectile, but no nucleons evaporated. The data are compared to model calculations.This article comprises part of the Ph.D. thesis of B. Voss     

Study of jet fragmentation in p+p collisions at 200 GeV in the STAR experiment

The measurement of jet fragmentation functions in p+p collisions at 200 GeV is of great interest because it provides a baseline to study jet quenching in heavy-ion collisions. It is expected that jet quenching in nuclear matter modifies the jet energy and multiplicity distributions, as well as the jet hadrochemical composition. Therefore, a systematic study of the fragmentation functions for charged hadrons and identified particles is a goal both in p+p and Au+Au collisions at RHIC. Studying fragmentation functions for identified particles is interesting in p+p by itself because it provides a test of NLO calculations at RHIC energies. We present a systematic comparison of jet energy spectra and fragment distributions using different jet-finding algorithms in p+p collisions in STAR. Fragmentation functions of charged and neutral strange particles are also reported for different jet energies.     

The three-dimensional (2 + 1)-fluid model for relativistic nuclear collisions

A new multi-fluid model is constructed for describing high-energy heavy-ion collisions. It is assumed that two baryonic fluids formed by the projectile and target nucleons produce a third hadronic fluid via inelastic nucleon-nucleon collisions. The production and expansion dynamics of the hadronic fluid are investigated in detail. Two equations of state for this fluid are considered: one corresponding to an ideal gas of pions and resonances and another one corresponding to an interacting hadron gas described by the relativistic mean-field model. The effects of freeze-out and non-zero pion chemical potential are investigated. The rapidity and transverse momentum spectra of secondary pions are compared with the experimental data forS + S collisions at 200 GeV/nucleon.The authors thank J. Schaffner for his most valuable assistance in the application of the mean-field model. The authors are also grateful to H. Sorge and A. Jahns for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) and the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie (BMFT).     

The effect of angular-momentum dissipation on fluctuations of excitation functions in heavy-ion collisions

We discuss here the effect of dissipation of relative angular momentum on fluctuations of excitation functions in dissipative heavy-ion collisions. Dissipation and fluctuation of relative angular momentum modify and smooth the time-angle localization of the rotating dinuclear system. The secondary maxima in the energy correlation function of the cross-section shift to smaller values of the energy difference, the shift depending on the relaxation time and the diffusion coefficient for angular-momentum dissipation. The results are illustrated for the collision²⁸Si(E _lab=130 MeV)+⁴⁸Ti.Partly supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation