The production of eta mesons has been measured in the proton-proton interaction close to the reaction threshold using the COSY-11 internal facility at the cooler synchrotron COSY. Total cross sections were determined for eight different excess energies in the range from 0.5 MeV to 5.4 MeV. The energy dependence of the total cross section is well described by the available phase-space volume weighted by FSI factors for the proton-proton and proton-eta pairs.
Threshold measurements of the associated strangeness production reactions pp --> p K(+) Lambda and pp --> p K(+) Sigma(0) are presented. Although slight differences in the shapes of the excitation functions are observed, the most remarkable feature of the data is that at the same excess energy the total cross section for the Sigma(0) production appears to be about a factor of 28 smaller than the one for the Lambda particle. It is concluded that strong Sigma(0)-p final state interactions, and in particular the Sigma-N --> Lambda-p conversion reaction, are the likely cause of the depletion for the yield in the Sigma signal. This hypothesis is in line with other experimental evidence in the literature.
Mid-rapidity open charm spectra from direct reconstruction of $D^{0}$($\bar{D^0}$)$\to K^{\mp}\pi^{\pm}$ in d+Au collisions and indirect electron/positron measurements via charm semileptonic decays in p+p and d+Au collisions at \srt = 200 GeV are reported. The $D^{0}$($\bar{D^0}$) spectrum covers a transverse momentum ($p_T$) range of 0.1 $<p_T<$ 3 \GeVc whereas the electron spectra cover a range of 1 $<p_T<$ 4 GeV/$c$. The electron spectra show approximate binary collision scaling between p+p and d+Au collisions. From these two independent analyses, the differential cross section per nucleon-nucleon binary interaction at mid-rapidity for open charm production from d+Au collisions at RHIC is $d\sigma^{NN}_{c\bar{c}}/dy$=0.30$\pm$0.04 (stat.)$\pm$0.09(syst.) mb. The results are compared to theoretical calculations. Implications for charmoniumm results in A+A collisions are discussed.
We report the first observation of $K^{\star}(892)^{0}\to\pi K$ in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The transverse momentum spectrum of $(K^{\star0}+\bar{K}^{\star0})/2$ from central Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130$ GeV is presented. The ratios of the $K^{\star0}$ yield derived from these data to the yields of negative hadrons, charged kaons, and $\phi$ mesons have been measured in central and minimum bias collisions and compared with model predictions and comparable $e^{+}e^{-}$, $pp$, and $\bar{p}p$ results. The data indicate no dramatic reduction of $K^{\star0}$ production in relativistic heavy ion collisions despite expected losses due to rescattering effects.
The production of the $\Lambda$(1520) baryonic resonance has been measured at midrapidity in inelastic pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV and in p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}$ = 5.02 TeV for non-single diffractive events and in multiplicity classes. The resonance is reconstructed through its hadronic decay channel $\Lambda$(1520) $\rightarrow$ pK$^{-}$ and the charge conjugate with the ALICE detector. The integrated yields and mean transverse momenta are calculated from the measured transverse momentum distributions in pp and p-Pb collisions. The mean transverse momenta follow mass ordering as previously observed for other hyperons in the same collision systems. A Blast-Wave function constrained by other light hadrons ($\pi$, K, K$_{\rm{S}}^0$, p, $\Lambda$) describes the shape of the $\Lambda$(1520) transverse momentum distribution up to 3.5 GeV/$c$ in p-Pb collisions. In the framework of this model, this observation suggests that the $\Lambda(1520)$ resonance participates in the same collective radial flow as other light hadrons. The ratio of the yield of $\Lambda(1520)$ to the yield of the ground state particle $\Lambda$ remains constant as a function of charged-particle multiplicity, suggesting that there is no net effect of the hadronic phase in p-Pb collisions on the $\Lambda$(1520) yield.
Antiproton production near midrapidity has been studied in central collisions of 32 S with sulphur, silver and gold nuclei at 200 GeV per nucleon. The measured transverse mass distributions can be described by an exponential with inverse slope parameters of about 200 MeV, similar to those obtained from Λ spectra. The rapidity density increases weakly with the target mass, ranging from 0.4 to 0.7. The ratio Λ p near midrapidity is approximately 1.4 on average, significantly larger than the corresponding ratio observed in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions.
The PHENIX experiment has measured mid-rapidity transverse momentum spectra (0.4 < p_T < 4.0 GeV/c) of single electrons as a function of centrality in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. Contributions to the raw spectra from photon conversions and Dalitz decays of light neutral mesons are measured by introducing a thin (1.7% X_0) converter into the PHENIX acceptance and are statistically removed. The subtracted ``non-photonic'' electron spectra are primarily due to the semi-leptonic decays of hadrons containing heavy quarks (charm and bottom). For all centralities, charm production is found to scale with the nuclear overlap function, T_AA. For minimum-bias collisions the charm cross section per binary collision is N_cc^bar/T_AA = 622 +/- 57 (stat.) +/- 160 (sys.) microbarns.
J/psi production in d+Au and p+p collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV has been measured by the PHENIX experiment at rapidities -2.2 < y < +2.4. The cross sections and nuclear dependence of J/\psi production versus rapidity, transverse momentum, and centrality are obtained and compared to lower energy p+A results and to theoretical models. The observed nuclear dependence in d+Au collisions is found to be modest, suggesting that the absorption in the final state is weak and the shadowing of the gluon distributions is small and consistent with Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi-based parameterizations that fit deep-inelastic scattering and Drell-Yan data at lower energies.
We present the first measurement of photoproduction of J/psi and of two-photon production of high-mass e+e- pairs in electromagnetic (or ultra-peripheral) nucleus-nucleus interactions, using Au+Au data at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. The events are tagged with forward neutrons emitted following Coulomb excitation of one or both Au^{star} nuclei. The event sample consists of 28 events with m_{e+e-} > 2 GeV/c^2 with zero like-sign background. The measured cross sections at midrapidity of d\sigma / dy (J/psi + Xn, y=0) = 76 +/- 33 (stat) +/- 11 (syst) micro b and d^2\sigma/dm dy (e^+e^- + Xn, y=0) = 86 +/- 23 (stat) +/- 16 (syst) micro b/(GeV/c^2) for m_{e+e-} \in [2.0,2.8] GeV/c^2 are consistent with various theoretical predictions.
We present the midrapidity charged pion invariant cross sections and the ratio of $\pi^-$-to-$\pi^+$ production ($5<p_T<13$ GeV/$c$), together with the double-helicity asymmetries ($5<p_T<12$ GeV/$c$) in polarized $p$$+$$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV. The cross section measurements are consistent with perturbative calculations in quantum chromodynamics within large uncertainties in the calculation due to the choice of factorization, renormalization, and fragmentation scales. However, the theoretical calculation of the ratio of $\pi^-$-to-$\pi^+$ production when considering these scale uncertainties overestimates the measured value, suggesting further investigation of the uncertainties on the charge-separated pion fragmentation functions is needed. Due to cancellations of uncertainties in the charge ratio, direct inclusion of these ratio data in future parameterizations should improve constraints on the flavor dependence of quark fragmentation functions to pions. By measuring charge-separated pion asymmetries, one can gain sensitivity to the sign of $\Delta G$ through the opposite sign of the up and down quark helicity distributions in conjunction with preferential fragmentation of positive pions from up quarks and negative pions from down quarks. The double-helicity asymmetries presented are sensitive to the gluon helicity distribution over an $x$ range of $\sim$0.03--0.16.
Forum