The NA44 collaboration has measured charged kaon and pion distributions at midrapidity in sulphur and proton collisions with nuclear targets at 200 and 450 GeV/c per nucleon, respectively. The inverse slopes of kaons are larger than those of pions. The difference in the inverse slopes of pions, kaons and protons, all measured in our spectrometer, increases with system size and is consistent with the buildup of collective flow for larger systems. The target dependence of both the yields and inverse slopes is stronger for the sulphur beam suggesting the increased importance of secondary rescattering for SA reactions. The rapidity density, dN/dy, of both K+ and K- increases more rapidly with system size than for pi+ in a similar rapidity region. This trend continues with increasing centrality, and according to RQMD, it is caused by secondary reactions between mesons and baryons. The K-/K+ ratio falls with increasing system size but more slowly than the pbar/p ratio. The pi-/pi+ ratio is close to unity for all systems. From pBe to SPb the K+/p ratio decreases while K-/pbar increases and ({K+*K-}/{p*pbar})**1/2 stays constant. These data suggest that as larger nuclei collide, the resulting system has a larger transverse expansion, baryon density and an increasing fraction of strange quarks.
Double differential K+cross sections have been measured in p+C collisions at 1.2, 1.5 and 2.5 GeV beam energy and in p+Pb collisions at 1.2 and 1.5 GeV. The K+ spectrum taken at 2.5 GeV can be reproduced quantitatively by a model calculation which takes into account first chance proton-nucleon collisions and internal momentum with energy distribution of nucleons according to the spectral function. At 1.2 and 1.5 GeV beam energy the K+ data excess significantly the model predictions for first chance collisions. When taking secondary processes into account the results of the calculations are in much better agreement with the data.
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.
The production of π±,K±,p has been measured in p+Be and p+Au collisions for comparison with central Si+Au collisions. The inverse slope parameters T0 obtained by an exponential fit to the invariant cross sections in transverse mass are found to be, T0p,K+,ππ∼140–160 MeV in p+A collisions, whereas in central Si+Au collisions, T0p,K+∼200–220 MeV >T0ππ∼140–160 MeV at midrapidity. The π± and K+ distributions are shifted backwards in p+Au compared with p+Be. A gradual increase of (dn/dy)K+ per projectile nucleon is observed from p+Be to p+Au to central Si+Au collisions, while pions show no significant increase.
During the recent commissioning of Au beams at the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron facility, experiment 886 measured production cross sections for π±, K±, p, and p¯ in minimum bias Au+Pt collisions at 11.5A GeV/c. Invariant differential cross sections, Ed3σ/dp3, were measured at several rigidities (p/Z≤1.8 GeV/c) using a 5.7° (fixed-angle) focusing spectrometer. For comparison, particle production was measured in minimum bias Si+Pt collisions at 14.6A GeV/c using the same apparatus and in p+Pt collisions at 12.9 GeV/c using a similar spectrometer at KEK. When normalized to projectile mass, Aproj, the measured π± and K± cross sections are nearly equal for the p+Pt and Si+Pt reactions. In contrast to this behavior, the π− cross section measured in Au+Pt shows a significant excess beyond Aproj scaling of the p+Pt measurement. This enhancement suggests collective phenomena contribute significantly to π− production in the larger Au+Pt colliding system. For the Au+Pt reaction, the π+ and K+ yields also exceed Aproj scaling of p+Pt collisions. However, little significance can be attributed to these excesses due to larger experimental uncertainties for the positive rigidity Au beam measurements. For antiprotons, the Si+Pt and Au+Pt cross sections fall well below Aproj scaling of the p+Pt yields indicating a substantial fraction of the nuclear projectile is ineffective for p¯ production. Comparing with p+Pt multiplicities, the Si+Pt and Au+Pt antiproton yields agree with that expected solely from ‘‘first’’ nucleon-nucleon collisions (i.e., collisions between previously unstruck nucleons). In light of expected p¯ annihilation in the colliding system, such projectile independence is unexpected without additional (projectile dependent) sources of p¯ production. In this case, the data indicate an approximate balance exists between absorption and additional sources of antiprotons. This balance is remarkable given the wide range of projectile mass spanned by these measurements.
A precision measurement of the double-differential production cross-section, ${{d^2 \sigma^{\pi^+}}}/{{d p d\Omega}}$, for pions of positive charge, performed in the HARP experiment is presented. The incident particles are protons of 12.9 GeV/c momentum impinging on an aluminium target of 5% nuclear interaction length. The measurement of this cross-section has a direct application to the calculation of the neutrino flux of the K2K experiment. After cuts, 210000 secondary tracks reconstructed in the forward spectrometer were used in this analysis. The results are given for secondaries within a momentum range from 0.75 GeV/c to 6.5 GeV/c, and within an angular range from 30 mrad to 210 mrad. The absolute normalization was performed using prescaled beam triggers counting protons on target. The overall scale of the cross-section is known to better than 6%, while the average point-to-point error is 8.2%.
We present measurements of the production symmetric high-mass hadron and pion pairs by protons of 200, 300, and 400 GeV, incident on a beryllium target. The two-particle invariant cross section for pion production can be described by the function E1E2d6σdp13dp23=(1.7×10−28)pt−8.4(1−xt)14 cm2/GeV4 (where pt is the mean pt of the two hadrons). Functions of the same form have been used in describing single-pion inclusive production. Equality of the exponents of pt in the two processes is observed, confirming the role of smearing contributions to single-hadron cross sections.
Measurements of the invariant cross section Ed3σd3p are presented for the production of hadrons (π, K, p, and p¯) at large transverse momentum (p⊥) by 200-, 300-, and 400-GeV protons incident on H2, D2, Be, Ti, and W targets. The measurements were made at a laboratory angle of 77 mrad, which corresponds to angles near 90° in the c.m. system of the incident proton and a single nucleon at rest. The range in p⊥ for the data is 0.77≤p⊥≤6.91 GeV/c, corresponding to values of the scaling variable x⊥=2p⊥s from 0.06 to 0.64. For p−p collisions, the pion cross sections can be represented in the region x⊥>35 by the form (1p⊥n)(1−x⊥)b, with n=8 and b=9. The ratio of π+ to π− production grows as a function of x⊥ to a value larger than 2 at x⊥≳0.5. The ratios of the production of K+ and protons to π+ and of K− and antiprotons to π− also scale with x⊥ for p−p collisions. The K±, p, and p¯ fitted values for n and b are given. Particle ratios are also presented for D2, Be, Ti, and W targets and the dependences on atomic weight (A) are discussed.
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