797 research outputs found
Antimatter and Matter Production in Heavy Ion Collisions at CERN (The NEWMASS Experiment NA52)
Besides the dedicated search for strangelets NA52 measures light
(anti)particle and (anti)nuclei production over a wide range of rapidity.
Compared to previous runs the statistics has been increased in the 1998 run by
more than one order of magnitude for negatively charged objects at different
spectrometer rigidities. Together with previous data taking at a rigidity of
-20 GeV/c we obtained 10^6 antiprotons 10^3 antideuterons and two antihelium3
without centrality requirements. We measured nuclei and antinuclei
(p,d,antiprotons, antideuterons) near midrapidity covering an impact parameter
range of b=2-12 fm. Our results strongly indicate that nuclei and antinuclei
are mainly produced via the coalescence mechanism. However the centrality
dependence of the antibaryon to baryon ratios show that antibaryons are
diminished due to annihilation and breakup reactions in the hadron dense
environment. The volume of the particle source extracted from coalescence
models agrees with results from pion interferometry for an expanding source.
The chemical and thermal freeze-out of nuclei and antinuclei appear to coincide
with each other and with the thermal freeze-out of hadrons.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the conference
on 'Fundamental Issues in Elementary Matter' Bad Honnef, Germany, Sept.
25-29, 200
Dynamics of Resonances in Strongly Interacting Systems
The effects of the propagation of particles which have a finite life-time and
an according broad distribution in their mass spectrum are discussed in the
context of a transport descriptions. In the first part some example cases of
mesonic modes in nuclear matter at finite densities and temperatures are
presented. These equilibrium calculations illustrate the dynamical range of
spectral distributions to be adequately covered by non-equilibrium description
of the dynamics of two nuclei colliding at high energies. The second part
addresses the problem of transport descriptions which properly account for the
damping width of the particles. A systematic and general gradient approximation
is presented in the form of diagrammatic rules which permit to derive a
self-consistent transport scheme from the Kadanoff--Baym equation. The scheme
is conserving and thermodynamically consistent provided the self-energies are
obtained within the Phi-derivable two-particle irreducible (2PI) method of
Baym. The merits, the limitations and partial cures of the limitations of this
transport scheme are discussed in detail.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the International Conference
"Progress in Nonequilibrium Green's Functions III", Kiel, 22.-26. August 200
The OPERA experiment Target Tracker
The main task of the Target Tracker detector of the long baseline neutrino
oscillation OPERA experiment is to locate in which of the target elementary
constituents, the lead/emulsion bricks, the neutrino interactions have occurred
and also to give calorimetric information about each event. The technology used
consists in walls of two planes of plastic scintillator strips, one per
transverse direction. Wavelength shifting fibres collect the light signal
emitted by the scintillator strips and guide it to both ends where it is read
by multi-anode photomultiplier tubes. All the elements used in the construction
of this detector and its main characteristics are described.Comment: 25 pages, submitted to Nuclear Instrument and Method
Cold Strangelets Formation with Finite Size Effects in High Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions
We have studied the phase diagram and evolution of a strangelet in
equilibrium with a finite hadronic gas. Significant finite size modifications
of the phase diagram are found and their parameter dependences are studied.
With the inclusion of finite size effects we have also been able to obtain the
detailed properties of the cold strangelet emerging in the final stage of the
isentropic expansion of a finite strange fireball in high energy heavy-ion
collisions.Comment: 19 pages(RevTex), 11 Postscript figures; To appear in Phys. Rev.
Review of Speculative "Disaster Scenarios" at RHIC
We discuss speculative disaster scenarios inspired by hypothetical new
fundamental processes that might occur in high energy relativistic heavy ion
collisions. We estimate the parameters relevant to black hole production; we
find that they are absurdly small. We show that other accelerator and
(especially) cosmic ray environments have already provided far more auspicious
opportunities for transition to a new vacuum state, so that existing
observations provide stringent bounds. We discuss in most detail the
possibility of producing a dangerous strangelet. We argue that four separate
requirements are necessary for this to occur: existence of large stable
strangelets, metastability of intermediate size strangelets, negative charge
for strangelets along the stability line, and production of intermediate size
strangelets in the heavy ion environment. We discuss both theoretical and
experimental reasons why each of these appears unlikely; in particular, we know
of no plausible suggestion for why the third or especially the fourth might be
true. Given minimal physical assumptions the continued existence of the Moon,
in the form we know it, despite billions of years of cosmic ray exposure,
provides powerful empirical evidence against the possibility of dangerous
strangelet production.Comment: 28 pages, REVTeX; minor revisions for publication (Reviews of Modern
Physics, ca. Oct. 2000); email to [email protected]
Multibaryons in the collective coordinate approach to the SU(3) Skyrme model
We obtain the rotational spectrum of strange multibaryon states by performing
the SU(3) collective coordinate quantization of the static multi-Skyrmions.
These background configurations are given in terms of rational maps, which are
very good approximations and share the same symmetries as the exact solutions.
Thus, the allowed quantum numbers in the spectra and the structure of the
collective Hamiltonians we obtain are also valid in the exact case. We find
that the predicted spectra are in overall agreement with those corresponding to
the alternative bound state soliton model.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figur
Multibaryons with heavy flavors in the Skyrme model
We investigate the possible existence of multibaryons with heavy flavor
quantum numbers using the bound state approach to the topological soliton model
and the recently proposed approximation for multiskyrmion fields based on
rational maps. We use an effective interaction lagrangian which consistently
incorporates both chiral symmetry and the heavy quark symmetry including the
corrections up to order 1/m_Q. The model predicts some narrow heavy flavored
multibaryon states with baryon number four and seven.Comment: 8 pages, no figures, RevTe
Multibaryons as Symmetric Multiskyrmions
We study non-adiabatic corrections to multibaryon systems within the bound
state approach to the SU(3) Skyrme model. We use approximate ansatze for the
static background fields based on rational maps which have the same symmetries
of the exact solutions. To determine the explicit form of the collective
Hamiltonians and wave functions we only make use of these symmetries. Thus, the
expressions obtained are also valid in the exact case. On the other hand, the
inertia parameters and hyperfine splitting constants we calculate do depend on
the detailed form of the ansatze and are, therefore, approximate. Using these
values we compute the low lying spectra of multibaryons with B <= 9 and
strangeness 0, -1 and -B. Finally, we show that the non-adiabatic corrections
do not affect the stability of the tetralambda and heptalambda found in a
previous work.Comment: 17 pages, RevTeX, no figure
Centrality dependence of K+ produced in Pb+Pb collisions at 158 GeV per nucleon
The NA52 collaboration searches for a discontinuous behaviour of charged
kaons produced in Pb+Pb collisions at 158 A GeV as a function of the impact
parameter, which could reveal a hadron to quark-gluon plasma (QGP) phase
transition. The K+ yield is found to grow proportional to the number of
participating ('wounded') nucleons N, above N=100. Previous NA52 data agree
with the above finding and show a discontinuous behaviour in the kaon
centrality dependence near N=100, marking the onset of strangeness enhancement
-over e.g. p+A data at the same \sqrt{s}- in a chemically equilibrated phase.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures, submitted to the XXXth International Conference
on High Energy Physics, 27 July - 2 August, 2000, Osaka, Japa
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