The concept of the cross section

The concept of cross section in introduced as a key concept in various research techniques involving collisions

Performance of ALICE pixel prototypes in high energy beams

The two innermost layers of the ALICE inner tracking system are instrumented with silicon pixel detectors. Single chip assembly prototypes of the ALICE pixels have been tested in high energy particle beams at the CERN SPS. Detection efficiency and spatial precision have been studied as a function of the threshold and the track incidence angle. The experimental method, data analysis and main results are presented.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, contribution to PIX2005 Workshop, Bonn (Germany), 5-8 September 200

Beam Test Performance and Simulation of Prototypes for the ALICE Silicon Pixel Detector

The silicon pixel detector (SPD) of the ALICE experiment in preparation at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is designed to provide the precise vertex reconstruction needed for measuring heavy flavor production in heavy ion collisions at very high energies and high multiplicity. The SPD forms the innermost part of the Inner Tracking System (ITS) which also includes silicon drift and silicon strip detectors. Single assembly prototypes of the ALICE SPD have been tested at the CERN SPS using high energy proton/pion beams in 2002 and 2003. We report on the experimental determination of the spatial precision. We also report on the first combined beam test with prototypes of the other ITS silicon detector technologies at the CERN SPS in November 2004. The issue of SPD simulation is briefly discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, prepared for proceedings of 7th International Position Sensitive Detectors Conference, Liverpool, Sept. 200

Elastic scattering of O-17+Pb-208 at energies near the Coulomb barrier

Within the frame of the commissioning of a new experimental apparatus EXPADES we undertook the measurement of the elastic scattering angular distribution for the system O-17+Pb-208 at energy around the Coulomb barrier. The reaction dynamics induced by loosely bound Radioactive Ion Beams is currently being extensively studied [4]. In particular the study of the elastic scattering process allows to obtain direct information on the total reaction cross section of the exotic nuclei. In order to understand the effect of the low binding energy on the reaction mechanism it is important to compare radioactive weakly bound nuclei with stable strongly-bound nuclei. In this framework the study of the O-17+Pb-208 elastic scattering can be considered to be complementary to a previous measurement of the total reaction cross section for the system F-17+Pb-208 at energies of 86, 90.4 MeV [5, 6]. The data will be compared with those obtained for the neighboring systems O-16,O-18+Pb-208 and others available in literature

High-K isomers in 176^{176}W and mechanisms of K-violation

An isomer, with t1/2 = 35 +- 10 ns and J, Kpi = 14, 14+, has been observed in the nucleus 176W using the reaction 150Nd(30Si,4n) at a beam energy of 133 MeV. The isomer exhibits an unusual pattern of decay in which the _majority_ of the flux proceeds directly to states with =0, bypassing available levels of intermediate K. This severe breakdown of normal K-selection rules in 176W is compared with recent observations of K-violation in neighboring nuclei, within the framework of proposed theoretical approaches. The available data on these K-violating decays seem to have a consistent explanation in models of K-mixing which include large-amplitude fluctuations of the nuclear shape

Shell model in the complex energy plane and two-particle resonances

An implementation of the shell-model to the complex energy plane is presented. The representation used in the method consists of bound single-particle states, Gamow resonances and scattering waves on the complex energy plane. Two-particle resonances are evaluated and their structure in terms of the single-particle degreees of freedom are analysed. It is found that two-particle resonances are mainly built upon bound states and Gamow resonances, but the contribution of the scattering states is also important.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.

Strangeness enhancements at central rapidity in 40 A GeV/c Pb-Pb collisions

Results are presented on neutral kaon, hyperon and antihyperon production in Pb-Pb and p-Be interactions at 40 GeV/c per nucleon. The enhancement pattern follows the same hierarchy as seen in the higher energy data - the enhancement increases with the strangeness content of the hyperons and with the centrality of collision. The centrality dependence of the Pb-Pb yields and enhancements is steeper at 40 than at 158 A GeV/c. The energy dependence of strangeness enhancements at mid-rapidity is discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures and 3 tables. Presented at International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM2009), Buzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 27 Sept - 2 Oct 2009. Submitted to J.Phys.G: Nucl.Part.Phys, one reference adde

INFN What Next: Ultra-relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

This document was prepared by the community that is active in Italy, within INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), in the field of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The experimental study of the phase diagram of strongly-interacting matter and of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) deconfined state will proceed, in the next 10-15 years, along two directions: the high-energy regime at RHIC and at the LHC, and the low-energy regime at FAIR, NICA, SPS and RHIC. The Italian community is strongly involved in the present and future programme of the ALICE experiment, the upgrade of which will open, in the 2020s, a new phase of high-precision characterisation of the QGP properties at the LHC. As a complement of this main activity, there is a growing interest in a possible future experiment at the SPS, which would target the search for the onset of deconfinement using dimuon measurements. On a longer timescale, the community looks with interest at the ongoing studies and discussions on a possible fixed-target programme using the LHC ion beams and on the Future Circular Collider.Comment: 99 pages, 56 figure

Rapidity distributions around mid-rapidity of strange particles in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 AA GeV/c

The production at central rapidity of K0s, Lambda, Xi and Omega particles in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 A GeV/c has been measured by the NA57 experiment over a centrality range corresponding to the most central 53% of the inelastic Pb-Pb cross section. In this paper we present the rapidity distribution of each particle in the central rapidity unit as a function of the event centrality. The distributions are analyzed based on hydrodynamical models of the collisions.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure

New results from the NA57 experiment

We report results from the experiment NA57 at CERN SPS on hyperon production at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 $A$ GeV/$c$ and 40 $A$ GeV/$c$. $\Lambda$, $\Xi$ and $\Omega$ yields are compared with those from the STAR experiment at the higher energy of the BNL RHIC. $\Lambda$, $\Xi$, $\Omega$\ and preliminary $K_S^0$ transverse mass spectra are presented and interpreted within the framework of a hydro-dynamical blast wave model.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, contribution to the proceedings of The XXXVIIIth Rencontres de Moriond "QCD and High Energy Hadronic Interactions