The differential and total cross sections for kaon pair production in the pp->ppK+K- reaction have been measured at three beam energies of 2.65, 2.70, and 2.83 GeV using the ANKE magnetic spectrometer at the COSY-Juelich accelerator. These near-threshold data are separated into pairs arising from the decay of the phi-meson and the remainder. For the non-phi selection, the ratio of the differential cross sections in terms of the K-p and K+p invariant masses is strongly peaked towards low masses. This effect can be described quantitatively by using a simple ansatz for the K-p final state interaction, where it is seen that the data are sensitive to the magnitude of an effective K-p scattering length. When allowance is made for a small number of phi events where the K- rescatters from the proton, the phi region is equally well described at all three energies. A very similar phenomenon is discovered in the ratio of the cross sections as functions of the K-pp and K+pp invariant masses and the identical final state interaction model is also very successful here. The world data on the energy dependence of the non-phi total cross section is also reproduced, except possibly for the results closest to threshold.
The PHENIX experiment has measured mid-rapidity transverse momentum spectra (0.4 < p_T < 4.0 GeV/c) of single electrons as a function of centrality in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. Contributions to the raw spectra from photon conversions and Dalitz decays of light neutral mesons are measured by introducing a thin (1.7% X_0) converter into the PHENIX acceptance and are statistically removed. The subtracted ``non-photonic'' electron spectra are primarily due to the semi-leptonic decays of hadrons containing heavy quarks (charm and bottom). For all centralities, charm production is found to scale with the nuclear overlap function, T_AA. For minimum-bias collisions the charm cross section per binary collision is N_cc^bar/T_AA = 622 +/- 57 (stat.) +/- 160 (sys.) microbarns.
J/psi production in d+Au and p+p collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV has been measured by the PHENIX experiment at rapidities -2.2 < y < +2.4. The cross sections and nuclear dependence of J/\psi production versus rapidity, transverse momentum, and centrality are obtained and compared to lower energy p+A results and to theoretical models. The observed nuclear dependence in d+Au collisions is found to be modest, suggesting that the absorption in the final state is weak and the shadowing of the gluon distributions is small and consistent with Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi-based parameterizations that fit deep-inelastic scattering and Drell-Yan data at lower energies.
The production of eta mesons has been measured in the proton-proton interaction close to the reaction threshold using the COSY-11 internal facility at the cooler synchrotron COSY. Total cross sections were determined for eight different excess energies in the range from 0.5 MeV to 5.4 MeV. The energy dependence of the total cross section is well described by the available phase-space volume weighted by FSI factors for the proton-proton and proton-eta pairs.
Results from the HELIOS External Spectrometer on kaon production in 200 GeV/ A S + W and p + W collisions are presented. The K π ratios are compared with results from a lower beam energy and are found to be remarkably similar. Evidence for secondary production of K + by meson-baryon rescattering is reviewed. Our results at y = 1.0–1.5 are compared with neutral strange particle results at midrapidity.
A sample of Lambda's produced in 2 A*GeV Ni + Cu collisions has been obtained with the EOS Time Projection Chamber at the Bevalac. Low background in the invariant mass distribution allows for the unambiguous demonstration of Lambda directed flow. The transverse mass spectrum at mid-rapidity has the characteristic shoulder-arm shape of particles undergoing radial transverse expansion. A linear dependence of Lambda multiplicity on impact parameter is observed, from which a total Lambda + Sigma^0 production cross section of $112 +/- 24 mb is deduced. Detailed comparisons with the ARC and RVUU models are made.
The excitation of theΔ resonance is observed in proton collisions on C, Nb and Pb targets at 0.8 and 1.6 GeV incident energies. The mass E0 and widthΓ of the resonance are determined from the invariant mass spectra of correlated (p, π±)-pairs in the final state of the collision: The mass E0 is smaller than that of the free resonance, however by comparing to intra-nuclear cascade calculations, this reduction is traced back to the effects of Fermi motion, NN scattering and pion reabsorption in nuclear matter.
We report on a sample of Jψ mesons coming from secondary vertices, a characteristic of heavyquark decay, detected in the Fermilab Meson West spectrometer. Based on eight signal events in which a Jψ emerges from a secondary vertex occurring in an air-gap region, we obtain an inclusive bb¯ cross section of 75 ± 31 ± 26 nb/nucleon. This result is compared to recent QCD predictions. We have also observed several events in the exclusive decay modes B±→Jψ+K± and B0→Jψ+K0* in which the B mass is fully reconstructed.
Sigma+ hyperon production was measured at the COSY-11 spectrometer via the p p --> n K+ Sigma+ reaction at excess energies of Q = 13 MeV and Q = 60 MeV. These measurements continue systematic hyperon production studies via the p p --> p K+ Lambda/Sigma0 reactions where a strong decrease of the cross section ratio close-to-threshold was observed. In order to verify models developed for the description of the Lambda and Sigma0 production we have performed the measurement on the Sigma+ hyperon and found unexpectedly that the total cross section is by more than one order of magnitude larger than predicted by all anticipated models. After the reconstruction of the kaon and neutron four momenta, the Sigma+ is identified via the missing mass technique. Details of the method and the measurement will be given and discussed in view of theoretical models.
We present the first measurement of photoproduction of J/psi and of two-photon production of high-mass e+e- pairs in electromagnetic (or ultra-peripheral) nucleus-nucleus interactions, using Au+Au data at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. The events are tagged with forward neutrons emitted following Coulomb excitation of one or both Au^{star} nuclei. The event sample consists of 28 events with m_{e+e-} > 2 GeV/c^2 with zero like-sign background. The measured cross sections at midrapidity of d\sigma / dy (J/psi + Xn, y=0) = 76 +/- 33 (stat) +/- 11 (syst) micro b and d^2\sigma/dm dy (e^+e^- + Xn, y=0) = 86 +/- 23 (stat) +/- 16 (syst) micro b/(GeV/c^2) for m_{e+e-} \in [2.0,2.8] GeV/c^2 are consistent with various theoretical predictions.
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