13 research outputs found
Evidence for Different Freeze-Out Radii of High- and Low-Energy Pions Emitted in Au+Au Collisions at 1 GeV/nucleon
Double differential production cross sections of negative and positive pions
and the number of participating protons have been measured in central Au+Au
collisions at 1 GeV per nucleon incident energy. At low pion energies the pi^-
yield is strongly enhanced over the pi^+ yield. The energy dependence of the
pi^-/pi^+ ratio is assigned to the Coulomb interaction of the charged pions
with the protons in the reaction zone. The deduced Coulomb potential increases
with increasing pion c.m. energy. This behavior indicates different freeze-out
radii for different pion energies in the c.m.~frame.Comment: IKDA is the Institute for Nuclear Physics in Darmstadt/German
First Measurement of Antikaon Phase-Space Distributions in Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions at Subthreshold Beam Energies
Differential production cross sections of K and K mesons have been
measured as function of the polar emission angle in Ni+Ni collisions at a beam
energy of 1.93 AGeV. In near-central collisions, the spectral shapes and the
widths of the rapidity distributions of K and K mesons are in agreement
with the assumption of isotropic emission. In non-central collisions, the K
and K rapidity distributions are broader than expected for a single thermal
source. In this case, the polar angle distributions are strongly
forward-backward peaked and the nonisotropic contribution to the total yield is
about one third both for K and K mesons. The K/K ratio is found
to be about 0.03 independent of the centrality of the reaction. This value is
significantly larger than predicted by microscopic transport calculations if
in-medium modifications of K mesons are neglected.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physics Letters
Medium Effects in Kaon and Antikaon Production in Nuclear Collisions at Subthreshold Beam Energies
Production cross sections of K and K mesons have been measured in C+C
collisions at beam energies per nucleon below and near the nucleon-nucleon
threshold. At a given beam energy, the spectral slopes of the K mesons are
significantly steeper than the ones of the K mesons. The excitation
functions for K and K mesons nearly coincide when correcting for the
threshold energy. In contrast, the K yield exceeds the K yield by a
factor of about 100 in proton-proton collisions at beam energies near the
respective nucleon-nucleon thresholds.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let
Emission Pattern of High-Energy Pions: A New Probe for the Early Phase of Heavy-Ion Collisions
The emission pattern of charged pions has been measured in Au+Au collisions
at 1 GeV/nucleon incident energy. In peripheral collisions and at target
rapidities, high-energy pions are emitted preferentially towards the target
spectator matter. In contrast, low-energy pions are emitted predominantly in
the opposite direction. The corresponding azimuthal anisotropy is explained by
the interaction of pions with projectile and target spectator matter. This
interaction with the spectator matter causes an effective shadowing which
varies with time during the reaction. Our observations show that high-energy
pions stem from the early stage of the collision whereas low-energy pions
freeze out later.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let