Measurements of charged pion and kaon production in central Pb+Pb collisions at 40, 80 and 158 AGeV are presented. These are compared with data at lower and higher energies as well as with results from p+p interactions. The mean pion multiplicity per wounded nucleon increases approximately linearly with s_NN^1/4 with a change of slope starting in the region 15-40 AGeV. The change from pion suppression with respect to p+p interactions, as observed at low collision energies, to pion enhancement at high energies occurs at about 40 AGeV. A non-monotonic energy dependence of the ratio of K^+ to pi^+ yields is observed, with a maximum close to 40 AGeV and an indication of a nearly constant value at higher energies.The measured dependences may be related to an increase of the entropy production and a decrease of the strangeness to entropy ratio in central Pb+Pb collisions in the low SPS energy range, which is consistent with the hypothesis that a transient state of deconfined matter is created above these energies. Other interpretations of the data are also discussed.
K- rapidity spectra from PB PB collisions at incident beam momentum 158 GeV/nucleon.
We report the results of a pion-electron scattering experiment to measure the charge radius of the pion. The experiment was performed in a 50 GeV/ c negative, unseparated beam at the IHEP accelerator, Serpukhov, and has been briefly reported in an earlier publication [1]. A magnetic spectrometer instrumented with wire spark chambers was used to record the incident pion trajectory and the angles and momenta of the scattered particles. Events are reconstructed by detailed trackfinding programs, and a set of kinematic and geometric cuts define the elastic sample. Electrons are identified both by kinematic criteria and pulse height information from total absorption lead glass Čerenkov counters. The final elastic sample consisted of 40 000 πe events in the region of four-momentum transfer squared 0.013 (GeV/ c ) 2 ⩽ q 2 ⩽ 0.036 (GeV/ c ) 2 . A full error matrix fit to the form factors of the pion gave the r.m.s. charge radius of the pion: 〈r π 2 〉 1 2 = (0.78 −0.10 +0.09 ) fm .
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