Strangeness and heavy flavor at RHIC: Recent results from PHENIX

We report recent results of strangeness and heavy flavor measurements from PHENIX. The topics are: Elliptic flow of strangeness and heavy flavor electron production comparing to the other hadrons, $\phi$ meson production, and an exotic particle search.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. Submitted to J. Phys. G (Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter, Cape Town, South Africa, September 15-20, 2004

In-medium formation of quarkonium

We confront preliminary RHIC data on J/Psi production in nuclear interactions with expectations which follow in scenarios involving charm quark recombination in a region of color deconfinement. The focus is on transverse momentum and rapidity spectra of the J/Psi, which carry a memory of the spectra of the charm quarks. In such a scenario, one predicts that both spectra will be narrower than those expected without recombination. Preliminary results for the transverse momentum spectra point toward a preference for the recombination picture, while the rapidity spectra do not exhibit any narrowing within present large uncertainties. We present new calculations in the recombination model for the centrality behavior of these signals, which map out the necessary experimental precision required for a definitive test.Comment: Based on invited talk at Strangeness in Quark Matter 2006, UCLA, March 26-31, 2006. Clarifying remarks added in published journal versio

J/ΨJ/\Psi production in Cu+CuCu+Cu and Au+AuAu+Au collisions measured by PHENIX at RHIC

PHENIX preliminary results on the $J/\Psi$ production in $Cu+Cu$ and $Au+Au$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV are presented. They are compared to results from lower energy experiments NA50 and NA60 at CERN SPS and to expectations from various theoretical models.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures, Proceedings for the SQM2006 Conference, submitted to "Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics

J/ψJ/\psi production in PHENIX

Heavy quarkonia production is expected to be sensitive to the formation of a quark gluon plasma (QGP). The PHENIX experiment has measured $J/\psi$ production at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$~200 GeV in Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions, as well as in reference p+p and d+Au runs. $J/\psi$'s were measured both at mid ($|y|<0.35$) and forward ($1.2<|y|<2.2$) rapidity. In this letter, we present the A+A preliminary results and compare them to normal cold nuclear matter expectations derived from PHENIX d+Au and p+p measurements as well as to theoretical models including various effects (color screening, recombination, sequential melting...).Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures. To appear in the proceedings of Hot Quarks 2006: Workshop for Young Scientists on the Physics of Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions, Villasimius, Italy, 15-20 May 200

Colour Deconfinement and Quarkonium Binding

At high temperatures, strongly interacting matter becomes a plasma of deconfined quarks and gluons. In statistical QCD, deconfinement and the properties of the resulting quark-gluon plasma can be investigated by studying the in-medium behaviour of heavy quark bound states. In high energy nuclear interactions, quarkonia probe different aspects of the medium formed in the collision. We survey the results of recent charmonium production studies in SPS and RHIC experiments.Comment: 50 pages, 53 figures; revised section 6.

Quarkonia production at RHIC

Quarkonia (J/Psi, Psi', Upsilon) production provides a sensitive probe of gluon distributions and their modification in nuclei; and is a leading probe of the hot-dense (deconfined) matter created in high-energy collisions of heavy ions. I will discuss our current understanding of the modification of gluon distributions in nuclei and other cold-nuclear-matter effects in the context of recent p-p and p(d)-A quarkonia measurements. Then I will review the latest results for nucleus-nucleus collisions from RHIC, and together with the baseline results from d-A and p-p collisions, discuss several alternative explanations for the observed suppressions and future prospects for distinguishing these different pictures.Comment: 8 pages including figures, writeup of talk given at Strange Quark Matter 2006, UCLA 26-31 March, 200

Recent results in relativistic heavy ion collisions: from ``a new state of matter'' to "the perfect fluid"

Experimental Physics with Relativistic Heavy Ions dates from 1992 when a beam of 197Au of energy greater than 10A GeV/c first became available at the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) soon followed in 1994 by a 208Pb beam of 158A GeV/c at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) at CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research). Previous pioneering measurements at the Berkeley Bevalac in the late 1970's and early 1980's were at much lower bombarding energies (~ 1 A GeV/c) where nuclear breakup rather than particle production is the dominant inelastic process in A+A collisions. More recently, starting in 2000, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL has produced head-on collisions of two 100A GeV beams of fully stripped Au ions, corresponding to nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy, sqrt(sNN)=200 GeV, total c.m. energy 200A GeV. The objective of this research program is to produce nuclear matter with extreme density and temperature, possibly resulting in a state of matter where the quarks and gluons normally confined inside individual nucleons (r < 1 fm) are free to act over distances an order of magnitude larger. Progress from the period 1992 to the present will be reviewed, with reference to previous results from light ion and proton-proton collisions where appropriate. Emphasis will be placed on the measurements which formed the basis for the announcements by the two major laboratories: "A new state of matter", by CERN on Feb 10, 2000 and "The perfect fluid", by BNL on April 19, 2005.Comment: 62 pages, 39 figures. Review article published in Reports on Progress in Physics on June 23, 2006. In this published version, mistakes, typographical errors, and citations have been corrected and a subsection has been adde

Centrality dependence of charged hadron production in deuteron+gold and nucleon+gold collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=200 GeV

We present transverse momentum (p_T) spectra of charged hadrons measured in deuteron-gold and nucleon-gold collisions at \sqrts = 200 GeV for four centrality classes. Nucleon-gold collisions were selected by tagging events in which a spectator nucleon was observed in one of two forward rapidity detectors. The spectra and yields were investigated as a function of the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions, \nu, suffered by deuteron nucleons. A comparison of charged particle yields to those in p+p collisions show that the yield per nucleon-nucleon collision saturates with \nu for high momentum particles. We also present the charged hadron to neutral pion ratios as a function of p_T.Comment: 330 authors, 15 pages text, 16 figures, 3 tables. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. v2 has minor changes to reflect revisions during review process. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

High-pT pi^zero Production with Respect to the Reaction Plane in Au + Au Collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV

Measurements of the azimuthal anisotropy of high-\pT neutral pion neutral pion production in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV by the PHENIX experiment are presented. The data included in this paper were collected during the 2004 RHIC running period and represent approximately an order of magnitude increase in the number of analyzed events relative to previously published results. Azimuthal angle distributions of pi^0s detected in the PHENIX electromagnetic calorimeters are measured relative to the reaction plane determined event-by-event using the forward and backward beam-beam counters. Amplitudes of the second Fourier component (v_2) of the angular distributions are presented as a function of pi^0 transverse momentum p_T for different bins in collision centrality. Measured reaction plane dependent pi^0 yields are used to determine the azimuthal dependence of the pi^0 suppression as a function of p_T, R_AA (Delta phi,p_T). A jet-quenching motivated geometric analysis is presented that attempts to simultaneously describe the centrality dependence and reaction plane angle dependence of the pi^0 suppression in terms of the path lengths of hypothetical parent partons in the medium. This set of results allows for a detailed examination of the influence of geometry in the collision region, and of the interplay between collective flow and jet-quenching effects along the azimuthal axis.Comment: 344 authors, 35 pages text, RevTeX-4, 24 figures, 8 tables. Submitted to Physical Review

Cold Nuclear Matter Effects on J/Psi as Constrained by Deuteron-Gold Measurements at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV

We present a new analysis of J/psi production yields in deuteron-gold collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV using data taken by the PHENIX experiment in 2003 and previously published in [S.S. Adler et al., Phys. Rev. Lett 96, 012304 (2006)]. The high statistics proton-proton J/psi data taken in 2005 is used to improve the baseline measurement and thus construct updated cold nuclear matter modification factors R_dAu. A suppression of J/psi in cold nuclear matter is observed as one goes forward in rapidity (in the deuteron-going direction), corresponding to a region more sensitive to initial state low-x gluons in the gold nucleus. The measured nuclear modification factors are compared to theoretical calculations of nuclear shadowing to which a J/psi (or precursor) break-up cross-section is added. Breakup cross sections of sigma_breakup = 2.8^[+1.7_-1.4] (2.2^[+1.6_-1.5]) mb are obtained by fitting these calculations to the data using two different models of nuclear shadowing. These breakup cross section values are consistent within large uncertainties with the 4.2 +/- 0.5 mb determined at lower collision energies. Projecting this range of cold nuclear matter effects to copper-copper and gold-gold collisions reveals that the current constraints are not sufficient to firmly quantify the additional hot nuclear matter effect.Comment: 453 authors from 59 institutions, 15 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables. Submitted to Physical Review C. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm