Mass dependence of light nucleus production in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions

Abstract

Light nuclei can be produced in the central reaction zone via coalescence in relativistic heavy ion collisions. E864 at BNL has measured the production of ten light nuclei with nuclear number of A=1 to A=7 at rapidity $y\simeq 1.9$ and $p_T/A\le 300MeV/c$. Data were taken with a Au beam of momentum of 11.5 A $GeV/c$ on a Pb or Pt target with different experimental settings. The invariant yields show a striking exponential dependence on nuclear number with a penalty factor of about 50 per additional nucleon. Detailed analysis reveals that the production may depend on the spin factor of the nucleus and the nuclear binding energy as well.

(6 pages, 3 figures), some changes on text, references and figures' lettering. To be published in PRL (13Dec1999)

References in corpus (1)

• Measurements of Neutrons in 11.5 A GeV/c Au+Pb Heavy Ion Collisions

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Production of light nuclei, hypernuclei and their antiparticles in relativistic nuclear collisions
• Observation of the antimatter helium-4 nucleus
• Antinuclei in Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Probing QCD critical fluctuations from light nuclei production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
• Production of deuterium, tritium, and ${}^3$He in central Pb+Pb collisions at 20A, 30A, 40A, 80A, and 158A GeV at the CERN SPS
• Measurements of ${}_{\Lambda }^3\mathrm{H}$ and ${}_{\Lambda }^4\mathrm{H}$ Lifetimes and Yields in Au+Au Collisions in the High Baryon Density Region
• Production of ${}_{\Lambda }^{3}H$ and ${}_{\Lambda }^{4}H$ in Central 11.5 GeV/c Au + Pt Heavy Ion Collisions
• Measurements of Light Nuclei Production in 11.5 A GeV/c Au+Pb Heavy-Ion Collisions
• Strangelets: Who is Looking, and How?
• Strangelet Search in AuAu Collisions at 200 GeV
• Production of Protons and Light Nuclei in Au+Au Collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 3 GeV with the STAR Detector
• Observation of the Antimatter Hypernucleus ${}_{\bar{\Lambda }}^4\overline{H}$
• Light (anti)nuclei production in Cu+Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=200$GeV
• Quasi-Particle Degrees of Freedom versus the Perfect Fluid as Descriptors of the Quark-Gluon Plasma