193 research outputs found

    Charmonia production in 450 GeV/c proton-induced reactions

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    Absolute \jpsi\ and \psip\ production cross sections have been measured at the CERN SPS, with 450~GeV/cc protons incident on a set of C, Al, Cu and W targets. Complementing these values with the results obtained by experiment NA51, which used the same beam and detector with H and D targets, we establish a coherent picture of charmonia production in proton-induced reactions at SPS energies. In particular, we show that the scaling of the \jpsi\ cross section with the mass number of the target, A, is well described as Aα^\alpha with αψ=0.919±0.015\alpha^\psi=0.919\pm0.015. The ratio between the \jpsi\ and \psip\ yields, in our kinematical window, is found to be independent of A, with αψαψ=0.014±0.011\alpha^{\psi^\prime}-\alpha^{\psi}=0.014\pm0.0 11

    Scaling of charged particle multiplicity in Pb-Pb collisions at SPS energies

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    The charged particle multiplicity distribution dNch/dηdN_{ch}/d\eta has been measured by the NA50 experiment in Pb--Pb collisions at the CERN SPS. Measurements were done at incident energies of 40 and 158 GeV per nucleon over a broad impact parameter range. The multiplicity distributions are studied as a function of centrality using the number of participating nucleons (NpartN_{part}), or the number of binary nucleon--nucleon collisions (NcollN_{coll}). Their values at midrapidity exhibit a power law scaling behaviour given by Npart1.00N_{part}^{1.00} and Ncoll0.75N_{coll}^{0.75} at 158 GeV. Compatible results are found for the scaling behaviour at 40 GeV. The width of the dNch/dηdN_{ch}/d\eta distributions is larger at 158 than at 40 GeV/nucleon and decreases slightly with centrality at both energies. Our results are compared to similar studies performed by other experiments both at the CERN SPS and at RHIC.

    Intermediate mass dimuons in NA38/NA50

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    The NA38/NA50 experiments have measured, at the CERN SPS, the dimuon production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. In this paper it is shown that the mass continuum between the ϕ\phi and the J/ψJ/{\psi} can be satisfactorily described, after having removed the combinatorial background due to uncorrelated π\pi and KK decays, as a sum of two contributions, namely the Drell-Yan process and the semi-leptonic decay of pairs of charmed mesons, whose mass shape in the acceptance of the experiment has been evaluated using PYTHIA. However, in order to describe the A - B (namely S - U and Pb - Pb) mass spectra, the dimuon yield from open charm decays, which in pp - A collisions is found to be consistent with direct open charm measurements from other CERN and FNAL experiments, has to be enhanced with respect to a linear extrapolation of pp - A results. The size of the enhancement smoothly increases from peripheral S - U to central Pb - Pb interactions, reaching a factor \sim 3 in central Pb - Pb collisions. The PTP_{T} distributions of the events in the mass continuum are also compatible with the hypothesis of open charm enhancement in A - B collisions

    Transverse momentum distributions of J/ψ\psi, ψ\psi^{\prime}, Drell-Yan and continuum dimuons produced in Pb-Pb interactions at the SPS

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    Muon pairs produced in Pb-Pb interactions at 158~GeV/cc per nucleon are used to study the transverse momentum distributions of the J/ψ\psi, ψ\psi^{\prime} and dimuons in the mass continuum. In particular, the dependence of these distributions on the centrality of the Pb-Pb collision is investigated in detail

    Results on Charmonium States in Pb-Pb Interactions

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    We present cross-sections for J/ψ\psi, ψ\psi^{\prime} and Drell-Yan production in lead-lead interactions at 158 GeV/nucleon. The Pb-Pb data, when compared with previous results obtained with lighter target or projectiles, show a similar behaviour for Drell-Yan, but exhibit an anomalous J/ψ\psi suppression, which increases with centrality

    Low mass dimuon production in proton and ion induced interactions at SPS

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    The low mass dimuon spectra collected in pp-U collisions by the NA38 experiment significantly exceeds the total cross section expected from previous analysis, done by other experiments. The 'excess' events have a harder pTp_{T} distribution than the muon pairs from η\eta and ω\omega Dalitz decays, expected to dominate the mass window 0.4—0.65~GeV/c2c^2. We conjecture that the excess events might be due to qqˉq\bar{q} annihilations, negligible at low pTp_{T} but made visible by the mTm_{T} cut applied in the NA38 data. Taking this assumption to parametrise the pp-U spectra, we proceed with the analysis of the S-Cu, S-U and Pb-Pb data, collected by the NA38 and NA50 experiments, where we find that the measured mass spectra does not seem to exceed the expected low mass `cocktail' by more than 20%

    stairs and fire

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