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 bet
In this paper we present a study on the production of the J ψ and ψ′ resonances, decaying into muon pairs, in S-U collisions, at 200 GeV per incident nucleon. We find that the ratio between ψ′ and tJ ψ yields decreases as E T , the neutral transverse energy produced in the collision, increases. There is also a clear decrease of this ratio when going from p-W to S-U interactions. Assuming the high mass continuum to be Drell-Yan we discuss the possible understanding of the intermediate dimuon mass region as a superposition of Drell-Yan (extrapolated down in mass) and muon pairs from the semileptonic decays of charmed mesons. The p-W data is found to be explained by this procedure. However, the S-U data seems to be incompatible with a linear extrapolation from the proton-nucleus results.
Muon pair production is studied in p - W and S U collisions at 200 GeV per nucleon, as a function of transverse momentum P Tμμ . The inclusive ϱ + ω and Φ differential cross-sections dσ dP T are measured in the dimuon decay channel, for P T ≥ 0.6 GeV/c, in the central rapidity region, 3.0≤ y ≤ 4.0. Assuming the power law A-dependence σ = σ 0 ( A beam · A target ) α , the study of the integrated cross-sections for p - W and S U collisions leads to α ϱ + ω = 1.00±0.02±0.07 and α Φ = 1.23±0.03±0.05, showing clear evidence of Φ enhancement in S U interactions as compared to p - W collisions.