A systematic set of measurements of the global transverse energy distributions, dσ/dET and dET/dη, from beams of protons, O16 and Si28 at 14.6A GeV/c, incident on targets ranging from Be to Au is presented. The detector was a semicircular array of lead-glass blocks, covering polar angles 9°<θ<32°, whose total response provides a good measure of the produced particle yield in the central rapidity region of these reactions. Proton-nucleus spectra exhibit a similar shape on the high-energy tail, independent of target, suggesting that produced particles in such events arise mostly from the first collision of the projectile proton. For targets heavier than Cu, the high-energy edges of the oxygen-nucleus spectra, and of the silicon-nucleus spectra, reach ratios consistent with the geometry of central collisions. Angular distributions, dET/dη, are characterized by Gaussian fits, and an acceptance-independent form of the differential cross section is found, based on the maximum value of dET/dη. The projectile dependence of nucleus-nucleus spectra is studied in terms of two very different models: simple energy scaling and the wounded projectile nucleon model of p+A convolutions.
In a joint effort the CERES/NA45 and TAPS collaborations have measured low-mass electron pairs in p–Be and p–Au collisions at 450 GeV/c at the CERN SPS. In the range covered up to ≈ 1.5 GeV/c2 the mass spectra from p–Be and p–Au collisions are well explained by electron pairs from decays of neutral mesons. For p–Au our result is new. For p–Be, the simultaneously measured electron pair inclusive pair spectrum in which instrumental uncertainties are highly reduced. We confirm the earlier finding of HELIOS-1 with significantly reduced systematic uncertainties of 23% in the mass range below 450 MeV/c2, and of 28% in the mass range above 750 MeV/c2 at 90% confidence limit. Any unconventional source of electron pairs is limited by these error margins as the percentage fraction of the hadronic contribution.
Following the first science results of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber operating from the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, USA, we report the initial limits on a model-independent non-relativistic effective field theory describing the complete set of possible interactions of a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) with a nucleon. These results utilize the same 5.5 t fiducial mass and 60 live days of exposure collected for the LZ spin-independent and spin-dependent analyses while extending the upper limit of the energy region of interest by a factor of 7.5 to 270 keVnr. No significant excess in this high energy region is observed. Using a profile-likelihood ratio analysis, we report 90% confidence level exclusion limits on the coupling of each individual non-relativistic WIMP-nucleon operator for both elastic and inelastic interactions in the isoscalar and isovector bases.
We detected 1–10 MeV neutrons at laboratory angles from 80° to 140° in coincidence with 470 GeV muons deep inelastically scattered from H, D, C, Ca, and Pb targets. The neutron energy spectrum for Pb can be fitted with two components with temperature parameters of 0.7 and 5.0 MeV. The average neutron multiplicity for 40<ν<400 GeV is about 5 for Pb, and less than 2 for Ca and C. These data are consistent with a process in which the emitted hadrons do not interact with the rest of the nucleus within distances smaller than the radius of Ca, but do interact within distances on the order of the radius of Pb in the measured kinematic range. For all targets the lack of high nuclear excitation is surprising.
Measurements of the global transverse energy distributions dσ / dE T and dE T / dη using the new AGS beam of 197 Au at 11.6 A GeV/ c on a Au target, as well as a beam of 28 Si at 14.6 A GeV/ c on Al and Au targets, are presented for a leadglass detector with acceptance 1.3 ≤ η ≤ 2.4 and 0 ≤ φ < 2 π . The dσ / dE T spectra are observed to have different shapes for the different systems and simple energy rescaling does not account for the projectile dependence. The Au+Au dσ / dE T spectrum is satisfactorily constructed from the upper edge of Si+Au by the geometric Wounded Projectile Nucleon Model after applying a correction for the beam energy.
We report the direct virtual photon invariant yields in the transverse momentum ranges $1\!<\!p_{T}\!<\!3$ GeV/$c$ and $5\!<\!p_T\!<\!10$ GeV/$c$ at mid-rapidity derived from the dielectron invariant mass continuum region $0.10<M_{ee}<0.28$ GeV/$c^{2}$ for 0-80\% minimum-bias Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV. A clear excess in the invariant yield compared to the number-of-binary-collisions ($N_{bin}$) scaled $p+p$ reference is observed in the $p_T$ range $1\!<\!p_{T}\!<\!3$ GeV/$c$. For $p_T\!>6$ GeV/$c$ the production follows $N_{bin}$ scaling. Model calculations with contributions from thermal radiation and initial hard parton scattering are consistent within uncertainties with the direct virtual photon invariant yield.
Rapidity-odd directed flow($v_1$) measurements for charged pions, protons and antiprotons near mid-rapidity ($y=0$) are reported in $\sqrt{s_{NN}} =$ 7.7, 11.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4 and 200 GeV Au + Au collisions as recorded by the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). At intermediate impact parameters, the proton and net-proton slope parameter $dv_1/dy|_{y=0}$ shows a minimum between 11.5 and 19.6 GeV. In addition, the net-proton $dv_1/dy|_{y=0}$ changes sign twice between 7.7 and 39 GeV. The proton and net-proton results qualitatively resemble predictions of a hydrodynamic model with a first-order phase transition from hadronic matter to deconfined matter, and differ from hadronic transport calculations.
Using data taken with the CLEO II detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring, we have determined the ratio of branching fractions: $R_{\gamma} \equiv \Gamma(\Upsilon(1S) \rightarrow \gamma gg)/\Gamma(\Upsilon(1S) \rightarrow ggg) = (2.75 \pm 0.04(stat.) \pm 0.15(syst.))%$. From this ratio, we have determined the QCD scale parameter $\Lambda_{\overline{MS}}$ (defined in the modified minimal subtraction scheme) to be $\Lambda_{\overline{MS}}= 233 \pm 11 \pm 59$ MeV, from which we determine a value for the strong coupling constant $\alpha_{s}(M_{\Upsilon(1S)}) = 0.163 \pm 0.002 \pm 0.014$, or $\alpha_{s}(M_{Z}) = 0.110 \pm 0.001 \pm 0.007$.
We report on a measurement of subthreshold η and π0 mesons in the reaction Ar+Ca at 180A MeV. We find that the ratio of the η to π0 meson-production cross section is more than a factor of 20 smaller than the one expected from threshold-energy scaling of meson production. In addition, the multiplicity of high mt π0 increases faster with the centrality of the reaction than the multiplicity of the bulk of π0 mesons. This behavior is explained by the rescattering of π mesons in nuclear matter at the origin of most energetic particles.
A systematic study of the spectra and yields of K+ and K− is reported by experiment E866 as a function of centrality in Au+Au collisions at 11.6A GeV/c. The invariant transverse spectra for both kaon species are well described by exponentials in mt, with inverse slope parameters that are largest at midrapidity and which increase with centrality. The inverse slopes of the K+ spectra are slightly larger than the inverse slopes of the K− spectra. The kaon rapidity density peaks at midrapidity with the K+ distribution wider in rapidity than K−. The integrated total yields of K+ and K− increase nonlinearly and steadily with the number of projectile participants. The yield per participant for kaons is two to three times larger than the yield from N−N collisions. This enhancement suggests that the majority of kaons in central Au+Au reactions are produced in secondary hadronic collisions. There is no evidence for an onset of additional kaon production from a possible small volume of baryon-rich quark-gluon plasma. The differences between K+ and K− rapidity distributions and transverse spectra are consistent with a lower phase space for K− production due to a higher energy threshold. These differences also exclude simple thermal models that assume emission from a common equilibrated system.
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