System-size dependence of the pion freeze-out volume as a potential signature for the phase transition to a Quark Gluon Plasma

Abstract

Hanburry-Brown-Twiss (HBT) correlation functions and radii of negatively charged pions from C+C, Si+Si, Cu+Cu, and In+In at lower RHIC/SPS energies are calculated with the UrQMD transport model and the CRAB analyzing program. We find a minimum in the excitation function of the pion freeze-out volume at low transverse momenta and around $E_{lab}\sim 20-30A$GeV which can be related to the transition from hadronic to string matter (which might be interpreted as a pre-cursor of the QGP). The existence of the minimum is explained by the competition of two mechanisms of the particle production, resonance decays and string formation/fragmentation.

12 pages, 4 figs

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Effects of a phase transition on two-pion interferometry in heavy-ion collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=2.4-7.7$ GeV
• Rapidity distribution of protons from the potential version of UrQMD model and the traditional coalescence afterburner
• Beam energy dependent two-pion interferometry and the freeze-out eccentricity of pions in heavy ion collisions at STAR
• Third order viscous hydrodynamics from the entropy four current