None
Results from the HELIOS External Spectrometer on kaon production in 200 GeV/ A S + W and p + W collisions are presented. The K π ratios are compared with results from a lower beam energy and are found to be remarkably similar. Evidence for secondary production of K + by meson-baryon rescattering is reviewed. Our results at y = 1.0–1.5 are compared with neutral strange particle results at midrapidity.
We report on the production ofe± μ∓ pairs in 450 GeV/c pBe collisions at the CERN SPS. Theeμ signal, which has average missing energy of 21 GeV, is shown to be consistent with expectations from charm decay, and implies a σ ×B for\(c\bar c\) production in p-nucleon collisions of 0.63 ± 0.35μb. Alternatively, using an estimate of charm production from other experiments, the data imply a 95% confidence level upper limit of 1.16μb on any new physics process which producese±μ∓.
Transverse-energy distributions have been measured for the collisions of the 32 S nucleus with Al, Ag, W, Pt, Pb, and U target nuclei, at an incident energy of 200 GeV per nucleon. The shapes of these distribution reflect the geometry of the collisions, including the deformation effects. For central collisions, the transverse-energy production in the region −0.1< η lab <2.9 increases approximately as A 0.5 , where A is the atomic mass number of the target. This increase is accompanied by a relative depletion in the forward region η lab > 2.9. These results are compared with those obtained under similar conditions with incident 16 O nuclei. A comparison is also made with the predictions of a Monte Carlo generator based on the dual parton model. Finally, we give estimates of the energy density reached and its dependence on the atomic mass number of the projectile.
Enhanced production of strange baryons and anti-baryons at central rapidity in S-W and S-z.sbnd;S with respect to p-A reactions has been reported by the CERN experiments WA85 and WA94. The WA97 experiment is extending such a study to Pb Pb collisions making use of the newly developed silicon pixel detectors. Results on Λ, Ξ − and Ω − production in Pb Pb collisions at 158 A GeV/ c at central rapidity are presented. Transverse mass spectra and particle ratios are presented. Hyperon yields are given as a function of the collision centrality and compared with those obtained from p-Pb collisions using the same experimental setup.
Preliminary results from WA97 measurements on Λ, Ξ and Ω production in lead-lead and proton-lead collisions are presented, along with a comparison of WA97 proton-lead data with previous WA85 proton-tungsten results. The ratio Ω gX seems to be enhanced in lead initiated reactions compared to proton initiated reactions.
The transverse energy distributions have been measured for interactions of 32 S nuclei with Al, Ag, W, Pt, Pb, and U targets, at an incident energy of 200 GeV per nucleon in the pseudorapidity region −0.1 < ν lab < 5.5. These distributions are compared with those for 16 OW interactions in the same pseudorapidity region and with earlier measurements performed with 16 O and 32 S projectiles in the region −0.1 < ν lab < 2.9. These comparisons provide both a better understanding of the dynamics involved and improved estimates of stopping power and energy density.
Multiplicity distributions of charged particles produced in the pseudorapidity range 0.9 < η lab < 5.5 were measured in oxygen-nucleus collisions for Al, Ag, and W target nuclei at incident energies of 60 and 200 GeV per nucleon. The multiplicity differential cross sections and the pseudorapidity distributions as a function of transverse energy are presented for the various target nuclei. The correlation between charged multiplicity and transverse energy is studied as a function of transverse energy. Data are compared with predictions of the IRIS and FRITIOF generators.
We present measurements of the rapidity and transverse-momentum distributions of the protons emitted in S+W, O+W, andp+W reactions at 200 GeV/A around the target rapidity (y=1). The rapidity density rises linearly with the transverse energy for all three systems, but the slope forp+W is much steeper than for O+W and S+W. The rapidity density forp+W is much higher than predicted by summing single nucleonnucleon collisions without any nuclear effects, indicating substantial rescattering of the produced particles. The predictions of the VENUS 3 model, including rescattering, show reasonable agreement with the data for all three systems. We do not have evidence for a strong collective flow of the outgoing particles.
A precision measurement of the double-differential production cross-section, ${{d^2 \sigma^{\pi^+}}}/{{d p d\Omega}}$, for pions of positive charge, performed in the HARP experiment is presented. The incident particles are protons of 12.9 GeV/c momentum impinging on an aluminium target of 5% nuclear interaction length. The measurement of this cross-section has a direct application to the calculation of the neutrino flux of the K2K experiment. After cuts, 210000 secondary tracks reconstructed in the forward spectrometer were used in this analysis. The results are given for secondaries within a momentum range from 0.75 GeV/c to 6.5 GeV/c, and within an angular range from 30 mrad to 210 mrad. The absolute normalization was performed using prescaled beam triggers counting protons on target. The overall scale of the cross-section is known to better than 6%, while the average point-to-point error is 8.2%.