A measurement of continuum dimuon production in proton-copper collisions at 800-GeV incident energy is presented. The dimuons observed in this experiment cover the mass range from 6.5 to 18 GeV near y=0 in the proton-nucleon center-of-momentum frame. Scaling forms of the cross section for the continuum are compared with the results of other experiments in the context of the parton model and quantum chromodynamics. The present limitations of such scaling comparisons are discussed.
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.
Data on multiplicities of charged particles produced in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at 200 GeV per nucleon are presented. It is shown that the mean multiplicity of negative particles is proportional to the mean number of nucleons participating in the collision both for nucleus-nucleus and proton-nucleus collisions. The apparent consistency of pion multiplicity data with the assumption of an incoherent superposition of nucleon-nucleon collisions is critically discussed.
psi' production is studied in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 GeV/c per nucleon incident momentum. Absolute cross-sections are measured and production rates are investigated as a function of the centrality of the collision. The results are compared with those obtained for lighter colliding systems and also for the J/psi meson produced under identical conditions.
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.
Yields for J/psi production in Cu+Cu collisions at sqrt (s_NN)= 200 GeV have been measured by the PHENIX experiment over the rapidity range |y| < 2.2 at transverse momenta from 0 to beyond 5 GeV/c. The invariant yield is obtained as a function of rapidity, transverse momentum and collision centrality, and compared with results in p+p and Au+Au collisions at the same energy. The Cu+Cu data provide greatly improved precision over existing Au+Au data for J/psi production in collisions with small to intermediate numbers of participants, providing a key constraint that is needed for disentangling cold and hot nuclear matter effects.
Cross sections for J ψ,ψ′ and Drell-Yan production in Pb+Pb collisions at 158×A GeV/c are presented and compared with results obtained by the NA38 and NA51 collaborations. The Pb+Pb data have been collected by the NA50 collaboration using the NA38 dimuon spectrometer. The Drell-Yan mechanism is found to scale as (A projectile · B target ) in p+B target and A projectile + B target collisions including Pb+Pb collisions. Regarding J ψ , an anomalous suppression is observed in Pb+Pb collisions with respect to the suppression observed in p+B target , O+B target and S+U collisions. The cross section ratios ψ′ ( J ψ ) are similar in Pb+Pb and S+U collisions.
Charmonium production in p – A collisions is a unique tool for the study of the interaction of bound c c states in nuclear matter. It can provide details on the basic features of the resonance formation mechanism and, in particular, on its non-perturbative aspects. In this Letter, we present an experimental study of charmonia and Drell–Yan production in proton–nucleus collisions at 450 GeV/ c . The results are analyzed in the framework of the Glauber model and lead to the values of the nuclear absorption cross-section σ abs pA for J / ψ and ψ ′. Then, we compare the J / ψ absorption in proton–nucleus and sulphur–uranium interactions, using NA38 data. We obtain that, for the J / ψ , σ abs pA and σ abs SU are compatible, showing that no sizeable additional suppression mechanism is present in S–U collisions, and confirming that the anomalous J / ψ suppression only sets in for Pb–Pb interactions.
The cross section for the reaction p¯N→μ+μ−X with muon pairs in the mass range 4<M<9 GeV/c2 and xF>0 was measured to be σ=0.104±0.005±0.008 nb/nucleon. The distributions dσdxF and M3dσdM were compared to the QCD-improved Drell-Yan model and to calculations including first-order QCD corrections, with use of deep-inelastic structure functions. Excellent agreement with the data was obtained if the calculations were multiplied by factors of 2.45 and 1.41, respectively.
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