Pion-pion correlations in Au+Au collisions at AGS energy

Pion-pion correlation functions have been measured in Au+Au collisions at 10.8 GeV/c per nucleon by the E877 collaboration. The width of the peak in the correlation function for identical pions, which is related to the source size, shows a dependence on pion momenta and on the orientation of the reaction plane

Two-pion correlations in Au+Au collisions at 10.8 GeV/c per nucleon

Two-particle correlation functions for positive and negative pions have been measured in Au+Au collisions at 10.8~GeV/c per nucleon. The data were analyzed using one- and three-dimensional correlation functions. From the results of the three-dimensional fit the phase space density of pions was calculated. It is consistent with local thermal equilibrium.Comment: 5 pages RevTeX (including 3 Figures

Decoding the phase structure of QCD via particle production at high energy

Recent studies based on non-perturbative lattice Monte-Carlo solutions of Quantum Chromodynamics, the theory of strong interactions, demonstrated that at high temperature there is a phase change from confined hadronic matter to a deconfined quark-gluon plasma where quarks and gluons can travel distances largely exceeding the size of hadrons. The phase structure of such strongly interacting matter can be decoded via analysis of particle abundances in high energy nuclear collisions within the framework of the statistical hadronization approach. The results imply quark-hadron duality at and experimental delineation of the location of the phase boundary of strongly interacting matter.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures; v2: final version accepted for publication in Natur