2,151 research outputs found
NA49/NA61: results and plans on beam energy and system size scan at the CERN SPS
This paper presents results and plans of the NA49 and NA61/SHINE experiments
at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron concerning the study of relativistic
nucleus-nucleus interactions. First, the NA49 evidence for the energy threshold
of creating quark-gluon plasma, the onset of deconfinement, in central
lead-lead collisions around 30A GeV is reviewed. Then the status of the
NA61/SHINE systematic study of properties of the onset of deconfinement is
presented. Second, the search for the critical point of strongly interacting
matter undertaken by both experiments is discussed. NA49 measured large
fluctuations at the top SPS energy, 158A GeV, in collisions of light and medium
size nuclei. They seem to indicate that the critical point exists and is
located close to baryonic chemical potential of about 250 MeV. The NA61/SHINE
beam energy and system size scan started in 2009 will provide evidence for the
existence of the critical point or refute the interpretation of the NA49
fluctuation data in terms of the critical point.Comment: 11 pages, invited talk at Quark Matter 201
Formation of Centauro and Strangelets in Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions at the LHC and their Identification by the ALICE Experiment
We present a phenomenological model which describes the formation of a
Centauro fireball in nucleus-nucleus interactions in the upper atmosphere and
at the LHC, and its decay to non-strange baryons and Strangelets. We describe
the CASTOR detector for the ALICE experiment at the LHC. CASTOR will probe, in
an event-by-event mode, the very forward, baryon-rich phase space 5.6 < \eta <
7.2 in 5.5 A TeV central Pb + Pb collisions. We present results of simulations
for the response of the CASTOR calorimeter, and in particular to the traversal
of Strangelets.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the 26th ICR
Performance of ALICE AD modules in the CERN PS test beam
Two modules of the AD detector have been studied with the test beam at the T10 facility at CERN. The AD detector is made of scintillator pads read out by wave-length shifters (WLS) coupled to clean fibres that carry the produced light to photo-multiplier tubes (PMTs). In ALICE the AD is used to trigger and study the physics of diffractive and ultra-peripheral collisions as well as for a variety of technical tasks like beam-gas background monitoring or as a luminometer. The position dependence of the modules' efficiency has been measured and the effect of hits on the WLS or PMTs has been evaluated. The charge deposited by pions and protons has been measured at different momenta of the test beam. The time resolution is determined as a function of the deposited charge. These results are important ingredients to better understand the AD detector, to benchmark the corresponding simulations, and very importantly they served as a baseline for a similar device, the Forward Diffractive Detector (FDD), being currently built and that will be in operation in ALICE during the LHC Runs 3 and 4.Peer reviewe
J/psi azimuthal anisotropy relative to the reaction plane in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 GeV per nucleon
The J/ azimuthal distribution relative to the reaction plane has been
measured by the NA50 experiment in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 GeV/nucleon. Various
physical mechanisms related to charmonium dissociation in the medium created in
the heavy ion collision are expected to introduce an anisotropy in the
azimuthal distribution of the observed J/ mesons at SPS energies. Hence,
the measurement of J/ elliptic anisotropy, quantified by the Fourier
coefficient v of the J/ azimuthal distribution relative to the
reaction plane, is an important tool to constrain theoretical models aimed at
explaining the anomalous J/ suppression observed in Pb-Pb collisions. We
present the measured J/ yields in different bins of azimuthal angle
relative to the reaction plane, as well as the resulting values of the Fourier
coefficient v as a function of the collision centrality and of the
J/ transverse momentum. The reaction plane has been estimated from the
azimuthal distribution of the neutral transverse energy detected in an
electromagnetic calorimeter. The analysis has been performed on a data sample
of about 100 000 events, distributed in five centrality or p
sub-samples. The extracted v values are significantly larger than zero
for non-central collisions and are seen to increase with p.Comment: proceedings of HP08 conference corrected a typo in one equatio
A new measurement of J/psi suppression in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 GeV per nucleon
We present a new measurement of J/psi production in Pb-Pb collisions at 158
GeV/nucleon, from the data sample collected in year 2000 by the NA50
Collaboration, under improved experimental conditions with respect to previous
years. With the target system placed in vacuum, the setup was better adapted to
study, in particular, the most peripheral nuclear collisions with unprecedented
accuracy. The analysis of this data sample shows that the (J/psi)/Drell-Yan
cross-sections ratio measured in the most peripheral Pb-Pb interactions is in
good agreement with the nuclear absorption pattern extrapolated from the
studies of proton-nucleus collisions. Furthermore, this new measurement
confirms our previous observation that the (J/psi)/Drell-Yan cross-sections
ratio departs from the normal nuclear absorption pattern for semi-central Pb-Pb
collisions and that this ratio persistently decreases up to the most central
collisions.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to Eur. Phys. J.
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