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.

Relativistic iron, lanthanum, holmium, and gold projectile nuclei with several different energies have been fragmented in targets of polyethylene, carbon, aluminum, copper, and lead. Our detectors cleanly resolve the individual charges of the heaviest of these fragments and provide some limited information on the masses. We have measured 1256 elemental partial cross sections for the production of fragments from interactions in these target materials. Values have been derived for another 417 cross sections in a hydrogen medium. These cross sections depend on the energy and mass of the projectile nuclei as well as on the nature of the target. Total charge-changing cross sections were also found, but only in a composite target, and have been shown to be weakly dependent on energy. The mean mass losses observed for fragments that have lost a few protons show that typically many neutrons are lost with each proton, producing fragment nuclei that must be highly proton rich, and consequently very unstable. The cross sections for charge pickup on heavy targets show a rapid increase with decreasing energy, particularly for the heaviest targets. The systematics of the dependencies of the partial cross sections will be discussed in a companion paper.

The absolute differential cross sections for ap elastic scattering and for the sum of elastic and quasielastic aa scattering have been measured at a momentum of 17.9 GeV/c in the four-momentum transfer region (0.01 < | t | < 0.2) GeV2/c2 with normalization errors less than 3%. Such measurements in the energy region of a few GeV have been performed for the first time. The measurements have been carried out using the alpha particle beam with the intensity of (1-5)x105 particles/s extracted from the synchrophasotron during 0.3-0.5s. The cryogen target filled with hydrogen (0.847+-0.001 g/cm2) and helium was used. The substance amount along the particle path constituted 0.11 g/cm2 in an unfilled target. The total cross sections, diffraction cone slope parameters and total elastic cross sections for ap and aa scattering have been obtained. The results are compared with the calculations carried out in the frames of the Glauber-Sitenko diffraction multiple scattering theory. The deviation of the calculated differential cross sections from the experimental ones is observed. In the region of the diffraction cone the deviation has a different sign for ap and aa scattering and amounts to 10-15%

We present an analysis of proton number fluctuations in $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 2.4 GeV Au+Au collisions measured with the High-Acceptance DiElectron Spectrometer (HADES) at GSI. With the help of extensive detector simulations done with IQMD transport model events including nuclear clusters, various nuisance effects influencing the observed proton cumulants have been investigated. Acceptance and efficiency corrections have been applied as a function of fine grained rapidity and transverse momentum bins, as well as considering local track density dependencies. Next, the effects of volume changes within particular centrality selections have been considered and beyond-leading-order corrections have been applied to the data. The efficiency and volume corrected proton number moments and cumulants Kn of orders n = 1, . . . , 4 have been obtained as a function of centrality and phase-space bin, as well as the corresponding correlators C_n . We find that the observed correlators show a power-law scaling with the mean number of protons, i.e. $C_n \propto <N>^n$, indicative of mostly long-range multi-particle correlations in momentum space. We also present a comparison of our results with Au+Au collision data obtained at RHIC at similar centralities, but higher $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$.

The Indiana Silicon Sphere 4π detector has been used to measure light-charged particles and intermediate-mass fragments (IMFs) emitted in the 18–4.8 GeV He3+natAg, Au197 reactions. Ejectile multiplicity and total event kinetic energy distributions scale systematically with projectile energy and target mass, except for the Agnat target at 3.6 and 4.8 GeV. For this system, a saturation in deposition energy is indicated by the data, suggesting the upper projectile energy for stopping has been reached. Maximum deposition energies of ∼950 MeV for the Agnat target and ∼1600 MeV for the Au197 target are inferred from the data. The results also demonstrate the importance of accounting for fast cascade processes in defining the excitation energy of the targetlike residue. Correlations between various observables and the average IMF multiplicity indicate that the total thermal energy and total observed charge provide useful gauges of the excitation energy of the fragmenting system. Comparison of the experimental distributions with intranuclear cascade predictions shows qualitative agreement. © 1996 The American Physical Society.

Differential cross sections for the neutral pion production reaction C12(p,π0)13Ng.s. have been measured at 153.5, 166.1, 186.0, and 204.0 MeV bombarding energy using recoil detection. The shape of the angular distribution agrees well with that of the mirror reaction C12(p,π+)13Cg.s.. Isospin invariance predicts for the ratio of the cross sections σ(p,π+)/σ(p,π0)=2. At 153.5, 166.1, and 186.0, MeV, where (p,π+) cross sections have been reported previously by other groups at the same reduced pion momentum η=pπ/mπc=0.34,0.55,0.78, the ratio of the total cross sections is 2.02±0.14, 3.14±0.12, and 2.12±0.16, respectively. The (p,π0) cross sections at 166 MeV is therefore 1.57±0.06 times larger than expected. For Tp<160 MeV, the experimental cross sections are larger than predicted by a phase space and Coulomb barrier penetration calculation that fits the higher-energy data. Differential cross sections were also obtained for the C12(p,π−)13O reaction, and upper limits set for differential cross sections for radiative capture to the ground state of N13.

A detailed study of pion production in central Mg - Mg collisions at a momentum of 4.3 GeV/c per incident nucleon was carried out using the GIBS set-up. It has been shown that the dependence of the average kinematical characteristics ( and ) of mesons on multiplicity differs from that for NN collisions at the same energy, which is due to nuclear effects. The temperatures of mesons have been estimated using two different selection criteria: in the rapidity interval and at angles in the CMS. A satisfactory fit for mesons can be achieved by using a form involving two temperatures and . The relative yield of the high-temperature component is . The results obtained by the intranuclear cascade model CASIMIR coincide with the experimental data estimated with both methods. From the analysis of angular distributions of mesons the anisotropy coefficient a was obtained. The anisotropy coefficient increases linearly with the kinetic energy (in the CMS). CASIMIR reproduces the increase of a with , but the slope is less steep than from experimental results.

A search for the 0 + → 2 + neutrinoless double-beta decay of 76 Ge into the first excited state of 76 Se has been carried out using a coincidence technique between Ge and NaI detectors. Since the expected number of counts is very small and mixed with a continuous background of natural radioactivity, special care has been taken to maintain the good energy resolution of the detectors. As a consequence, the experimental data display, after 6207 h statistical time, a coincidence signal of 19.3 ± 5.8 counts, between an energy deposition of 1484.0 ± 0.3 keV in the Ge detectors and 561 ± 10 keV in the NaI detectors. Both Ge and NaI energies are within the experimental errors, compatible with the expected values. No other unidentified coincidence signal has been found in the full Ge-NaI energy matrix, and no similar γγ cascade has been found within our background. Even if the low statistics does not completely rule out the possibility of a statistical fluctuation, this result should encourage further experiments with improved sensitivities.

This paper describes the measurement of elliptic flow of charged particles in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 2.76 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The results are based on an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 ub^-1. Elliptic flow is measured over a wide region in pseudorapidity, |eta| < 2.5, and over a broad range in transverse momentum, 0.5 < p_T < 20 GeV. The elliptic flow parameter v_2 is obtained by correlating individual tracks with the event plane measured using energy deposited in the forward calorimeters. As a function of transverse momentum, v_2(p_T) reaches a maximum at p_T of about 3 GeV, then decreases and becomes weakly dependent on p_T above 7 - 8 GeV. Over the measured pseudorapidity region, v_2 is found to be approximately independent of |eta| for all collision centralities and particle transverse momenta, something not observed in lower energy collisions. The results are discussed in the context of previous measurements at lower collision energies, as well as recent results from the LHC.

We report results on a precision measurement of the ratio R=σLσT in deep inelastic electron-nucleon scattering in the kinematic range 0.2≤x≤0.5 and 1≤Q2≤10 (GeV/c)2. Our results show, for the first time, a clear falloff of R with increasing Q2. Our R results are in agreement with QCD predictions only when corrections for target mass effects and some additional higher twist effects are included. At small x, the data on R favor structure functions with a large gluon contribution. We also report results on the differences RA−RD and the cross section ratio σAσD between Fe and Au nuclei and the deuteron. Our results for RA−RD are consistent with zero for all x, Q2 indicating that possible contributions to R from nuclear higher twist effects and spin-0 constituents in nuclei are not different from those in nucleons. The ratios σAσD from all recent experiments, at all x, Q2 values, are now in agreement.