Transverse momentum spectra and rapidity densities, dN/dy, of protons, anti-protons, and net--protons (p-pbar) from central (0-5%) Au+Au collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 200 GeV were measured with the BRAHMS experiment within the rapidity range 0 < y < 3. The proton and anti-proton dN/dy decrease from mid-rapidity to y=3. The net-proton yield is roughly constant for y<1 at dN/dy~7, and increases to dN/dy~12 at y~3. The data show that collisions at this energy exhibit a high degree of transparency and that the linear scaling of rapidity loss with rapidity observed at lower energies is broken. The energy loss per participant nucleon is estimated to be 73 +- 6 GeV.
Mid-rapidity open charm spectra from direct reconstruction of $D^{0}$($\bar{D^0}$)$\to K^{\mp}\pi^{\pm}$ in d+Au collisions and indirect electron/positron measurements via charm semileptonic decays in p+p and d+Au collisions at \srt = 200 GeV are reported. The $D^{0}$($\bar{D^0}$) spectrum covers a transverse momentum ($p_T$) range of 0.1 $<p_T<$ 3 \GeVc whereas the electron spectra cover a range of 1 $<p_T<$ 4 GeV/$c$. The electron spectra show approximate binary collision scaling between p+p and d+Au collisions. From these two independent analyses, the differential cross section per nucleon-nucleon binary interaction at mid-rapidity for open charm production from d+Au collisions at RHIC is $d\sigma^{NN}_{c\bar{c}}/dy$=0.30$\pm$0.04 (stat.)$\pm$0.09(syst.) mb. The results are compared to theoretical calculations. Implications for charmoniumm results in A+A collisions are discussed.
The ATLAS experiment has observed 1995 Z boson candidates in data corresponding to 0.15 inverse nb of integrated luminosity obtained in the 2011 LHC Pb+Pb run at sqrt(s_NN)=2.76 TeV. The Z bosons are reconstructed via di-electron and di-muon decay channels, with a background contamination of less than 3%. Results from the two channels are consistent and are combined. Within the statistical and systematic uncertainties, the per-event Z boson yield is proportional to the number of binary collisions estimated by the Glauber model. The elliptic anisotropy of the azimuthal distribution of the Z boson with respect to the event plane is found to be consistent with zero.
Invariant pT spectra and rapidity densities covering a large rapidity range(-0.1 < y < 3.5) are presented for $\pi^{\pm}$ and $K^{\pm}$ mesons from central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 62.4 GeV. The mid-rapidity yields of meson particles relative to their anti-particles are found to be close to unity ($\pi^-/\pi^+ \sim 1$, $K^-/K^+ \sim 0.85$) while the anti-proton to proton ratio is $\bar{p}/p \sim 0.49$. The rapidity dependence of the $\pi^-/\pi^+$ ratio is consistent with a small increase towards forward rapidities while the $K^-/K^+$ and $\bar{p}/p$ ratios show a steep decrease to $\sim$ 0.3 for kaons and 0.022 for protons at $y\sim 3$. It is observed that the kaon production relative to its own anti-particle as well as to pion production in wide rapidity and energy ranges shows an apparent universal behavior consistent with the baryo-chemical potential, as deduced from the $\bar{p}/p$ ratio, being the driving parameter.
Transverse momentum spectra of protons and anti-protons measured in the rapidity range 0<y<3.1 from 0-10% central Au+Au collisions at sqrt{s_{NN}}=62.4 GeV are presented. The rapidity densities, dN/dy, of protons, anti-protons and net-protons N()p-N(pbar) have been deduced from the spectra over a rapidity range wide enough to observe the expected maximum net-baryon density. From mid-rapidity to y=1 the net-proton yield is roughly constant (dN/dy ~ 10),but rises to dN/dy ~25 at 2.3<y<3.1. The mean rapidity loss is 2.01 +-0.16 units from beam rapidity. The measured rapidity distributions are compared to model predictions. Systematics of net-baryon distributions and rapidity loss vs. collision energy are discussed.
We have measured rapidity densities dN/dy of pions and kaons over a broad rapidity range (-0.1 < y < 3.5) for central Au+Au collisions at sqrt(snn) = 200 GeV. These data have significant implications for the chemistry and dynamics of the dense system that is initially created in the collisions. The full phase-space yields are 1660 +/- 15 +/- 133 (pi+), 1683 +/- 16 +/- 135 (pi-), 286 +/- 5 +/- 23 (K+) and 242 +/- 4 +/- 19 (K-). The systematics of the strange to non--strange meson ratios are found to track the variation of the baryo-chemical potential with rapidity and energy. Landau--Carruthers hydrodynamic is found to describe the bulk transport of the pions in the longitudinal direction.
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.
Dijet angular distributions from the first LHC pp collisions at center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV have been measured with the ATLAS detector. The dataset used for this analysis represents an integrated luminosity of 3.1 pb-1. Dijet $\chi$ distributions and centrality ratios have been measured up to dijet masses of 2.8 TeV, and found to be in good agreement with Standard Model predictions. Analysis of the $\chi$ distributions excludes quark contact interactions with a compositeness scale $\Lambda$ below 3.4 TeV, at 95% confidence level, significantly exceeding previous limits.
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