The Transverse Structure of the Baryon Source in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

Abstract

A direct method to reconstruct the transverse structure of the baryon source formed in a relativistic heavy ion collision is presented. The procedure makes use of experimentally measured proton and deuteron spectra and assumes that deuterons are formed via two-nucleon coalescence. The transverse density shape and flow profile are reconstructed for Pb+Pb collisions at the CERN-SPS. The ambiguity with respect to the source temperature is demonstrated and possible ways to resolve it are discussed.Comment: 15 pages LaTeX, 4 postscript figures, uses psfig.sty - Revised version, few minor change