The NA61/SHINE collaboration studies at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) the onset of deconfinement in hadronic matter by the measurement of particle production in collisions of nuclei with various sizes at a set of energies covering the SPS energy range. This paper presents results on inclusive double-differential spectra and mean multiplicities of $\pi^{-}$ mesons produced in the 5\% most \textit{central} $^7$Be+$^9$Be collisions at beam momenta of 19$A$, 30$A$, 40$A$, 75$A$ and 150$A$ GeV/$c$ obtained by the so-called $h^-$ method which does not require any particle identification. The shape of the transverse mass spectra differs from the shapes measured in central Pb+Pb collisions and inelastic p+p interactions. The normalized width of the rapidity distribution decreases with increasing collision energy and is in between the results for inelastic nucleon-nucleon and central Pb+Pb collisions. The mean multiplicity of pions per wounded nucleon in \textit{central} $^7$Be+$^9$Be collisions is close to that in central Pb+Pb collisions up to 75$A$GeV/$c$. However, at the top SPS energy the result is close to the one for inelastic nucleon-nucleon interactions. The results are discussed in the context of predictions for the onset of deconfinement at the CERN SPS collision energies.
The NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN SPS is performing a uniqe study of the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter by varying collision energy and nuclear mass number of colliding nuclei. In central Pb+Pb collisions the NA49 experiment found structures in the energy dependence of several observables in the CERN SPS energy range that had been predicted for the transition to a deconfined phase. New measurements of NA61/SHINE find intriguing similarities in p+p interactions for which no deconfinement transition is expected at SPS energies. Possible implications will be discussed.
Measurements of the ratio of Drell-Yan yields from an 800 \rm{GeV/c} proton beam incident on liquid hydrogen and deuterium targets are reported. Approximately 360,000 Drell-Yan muon pairs remained after all cuts on the data. From these data, the ratio of anti-down ($\bar{d}$) to anti-up ($\bar{u}$) quark distributions in the proton sea is determined over a wide range in Bjorken-$x$. These results confirm previous measurements by E866 and extend them to lower $x$. From these data, $(\bar{d}-\bar{u})$ and $\int(\bar{d}-\bar{u})dx$ are evaluated for $0.015<x<0.35$. These results are compared with parameterizations of various parton distribution functions, models and experimental results from NA51, NMC, and HERMES.
We present a measurement of the polarization observed for bottomonium states produced in p-Cu collisions at sqrt(s)=38.8 GeV. The angular distribution of the decay dimuons of the Upsilon(1S) state show no polarization at small xF and pT but significant positive transverse production polarization for either pT > 1.8 GeV/c or for xF > 0.35. The Upsilon(2S+3S) unresolved states show a large transverse production polarization at all values of xF and pT measured. These observations are compared with an NRQCD calculation that predicts a transverse polarization in bottomonium production arising from quark-antiquark fusion and gluon-gluon fusion diagrams.
A precise measurement of the ratios of the Drell-Yan cross section per nucleon for an 800 GeV/c proton beam incident on Be, Fe and W targets is reported. The behavior of the Drell-Yan ratios at small target parton momentum fraction is well described by an existing fit to the shadowing observed in deep-inelastic scattering. The cross section ratios as a function of the incident parton momentum fraction set tight limits on the energy loss of quarks passing through a cold nucleus.
A precise measurement of the ratio of Drell-Yan yields from an 800 GeV/c proton beam incident on hydrogen and deuterium targets is reported. Over 140,000 Drell-Yan muon pairs with dimuon mass M_{mu+ mu-} >= 4.5 GeV/c^2 were recorded. From these data, the ratio of anti-down (dbar) to anti-up (ubar) quark distributions in the proton sea is determined over a wide range in Bjorken-x. A strong x dependence is observed in the ratio dbar/ubar, showing substantial enhancement of dbar with respect to ubar for x<0.2. This result is in fair agreement with recent parton distribution parameterizations of the sea. For x>0.2, the observed dbar/ubar ratio is much nearer unity than given by the parameterizations.
We report a high statistics measurement of Upsilon production with an 800 GeV/c proton beam on hydrogen and deuterium targets. The dominance of the gluon-gluon fusion process for Upsilon production at this energy implies that the cross section ratio, $\sigma (p + d \to \Upsilon) / 2\sigma (p + p\to \Upsilon)$, is sensitive to the gluon content in the neutron relative to that in the proton. Over the kinematic region 0 < x_F < 0.6, this ratio is found to be consistent with unity, in striking contrast to the behavior of the Drell-Yan cross section ratio $\sigma(p+d)_{DY}/2\sigma(p+p)_{DY}$. This result shows that the gluon distributions in the proton and neutron are very similar. The Upsilon production cross sections are also compared with the p+d and p+Cu cross sections from earlier measurements.
Measurements of the suppression of the yield per nucleon of J/Psi and Psi' production for 800 GeV/c protons incident on heavy relative to light nuclear targets have been made with very broad coverage in xF and pT. The observed suppression is smallest at xF values of 0.25 and below and increases at larger values of xF. It is also strongest at small pT. Substantial differences between the Psi' and J/Psi are observed for the first time in p-A collisions. The suppression for the Psi' is stronger than that for the J/Psi for xF near zero, but becomes comparable to that for the J/Psi for xF > 0.6.
We report on the first observation of open charm production in neutral current deep inelastic neutrino scattering as seen in the NuTeV detector at Fermilab. The production rate is shown to be consistent with a pure gluon-$% Z^{0}$ boson production model, and the observed level of charm production is used to determine the effective charm mass. As part of our analysis, we also obtain a new measurement for the proton-nucleon charm production cross section at $\sqrt{s}=38.8$ GeV.
We present measurements of the semi-inclusive cross sections for νμ- and ν¯μ-nucleon deep inelastic scattering interactions with two oppositely charged muons in the final state. These events dominantly arise from the production of a charm quark during the scattering process. The measurement was obtained from the analysis of 5102 νμ-induced and 1458 ν¯μ-induced events collected with the NuTeV detector exposed to a sign-selected beam at the Fermilab Tevatron. We also extract a cross-section measurement from a reanalysis of 5030 νμ-induced and 1060 ν¯μ-induced events collected from the exposure of the same detector to a quad-triplet beam by the Chicago Columbia Fermilab Rochester (CCFR) experiment. The results are combined to obtain the most statistically precise measurement of neutrino-induced dimuon production cross sections to date. These measurements should be of broad use to phenomenologists interested in the dynamics of charm production, the strangeness content of the nucleon, and the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element Vcd.
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