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.
The analysis of the data collected by the NA50 experiment in 1998, reported in this paper, extends and clarifies the pattern of the previously observed J/ ψ anomalous suppression. This new measurement, besides providing a deeper understanding of the previous observations, reveals a steady significative decrease in the J/ ψ production rate up to the most central Pb-Pb collisions. It clearly rules out the presently available conventional (hadronic) models of J/ ψ suppression, which unanimously predict a saturation of the J/ ψ rate for central Pb-Pb collisions. On the contrary and together with the sharp onset of the anomalous suppression previously reported, the new observation leads to a global production rate pattern which finds its natural explanation in the framework of the formation of a deconfined state of quarks and gluons.
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