PHENIX has measured the centrality dependence of mid-rapidity pion, kaon and proton transverse momentum distributions in d+Au and p+p collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. The p+p data provide a reference for nuclear effects in d+Au and previously measured Au+Au collisions. Hadron production is enhanced in d+Au, relative to independent nucleon-nucleon scattering, as was observed in lower energy collisions. The nuclear modification factor for (anti) protons is larger than that for pions. The difference increases with centrality, but is not sufficient to account for the abundance of baryon production observed in central Au+Au collisions at RHIC. The centrality dependence in d+Au shows that the nuclear modification factor increases gradually with the number of collisions suffered by each participant nucleon. We also present comparisons with lower energy data as well as with parton recombination and other theoretical models of nuclear effects on particle production.
We report the first measurement of strange ($\Lambda$) and anti-strange ($\bar{\Lambda}$) baryon production from $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130$ GeV Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Rapidity density and transverse mass distributions at mid-rapidity are presented as a function of centrality. The yield of $\Lambda$ and $\bar{\Lambda}$ hyperons is found to be approximately proportional to the number of negative hadrons. The production of $\bar{\Lambda}$ hyperons relative to negative hadrons increases very rapidly with transverse momentum. The magnitude of the increase cannot be described by existing hadronic string fragmentation models.
Strange baryon and in particular multi-strange baryon production is suggested to be a useful probe in the search for quark gluon plasma formation in heavy ion collisions. We have measured the (Ω − + Ω + ) (Ξ − + Ξ + ) production ratio to be 0.8±0.4 at central rapidity and ϱ T > 1.6 GeV/c.
Multi-strange baryon and anti-baryon production is expected to be a useful probe in the search for Quark-Gluon Plasma formation. We present the transverse mass distributions of negative particles, K o s, Λs, Λ s, and Ξ − s produced in sulphurtungsten interactions at 200 GeV/c per nucleon and give the corrected ratios Λ Λ, Ξ − Λ and Ξ − /Λ . We note that our ratio Ξ − / Λ appears large in comparison to that from p p interactions.
The production of charmed particles by Sigma- of 340 Gev/c momentum was studied in the hyperon beam experiment WA89 at the CERN-SPS, using the Omega-spectrometer. In two data-taking periods in 1993 and 1994 an integrated luminosity of 1600 microb^-1 on copper and carbon targets was recorded. From the reconstruction of 930 +- 90 charm particle decays in 10 decay channels production cross sections for D, antiD, Ds and Lambdac were determined in the region xF>0. Assuming an A^1 dependence of the cross section on the nucleon number, we calculate a total ccbar production cross section of sigma(x_F > 0) = 5.3+- 0.4(stat)+-1.0(syst)+1.0(Xi_c) microb per nucleon. The last term is an upper limit on the unknown contribution from charmed-strange baryon production.
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