No Arabic abstract
The yield of muon pairs in the invariant mass region 1<M<2.5 GeV/c^2 produced in heavy-ion collisions significantly exceeds the sum of the two expected contributions, Drell-Yan dimuons and muon pairs from the decays of D meson pairs. These sources properly account for the dimuons produced in proton-nucleus collisions. In this paper, we show that dimuons are also produced in excess in 158 A GeV In-In collisions. We furthermore observe, by tagging the dimuon vertices, that this excess is not due to enhanced D meson production, but made of prompt muon pairs, as expected from a source of thermal dimuons specific to high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. The yield of this excess increases significantly from peripheral to central collisions, both with respect to the Drell-Yan yield and to the number of nucleons participating in the collisions. Furthermore, the transverse mass distributions of the excess dimuons are well described by an exponential function, with inverse slope values around 190 MeV. The values are independent of mass and significantly lower than those found at masses below 1 GeV/c^2, rising there up to 250 MeV due to radial flow. This suggests the emission source of thermal dimuons above 1 GeV/c^2 to be of largely partonic origin, when radial flow has not yet built up.
The NA60 experiment studies muon pair production at the CERN SPS. In this letter we report on a precision measurement of J/psi in In-In collisions. We have studied the J/psi centrality distribution, and we have compared it with the one expected if absorption in cold nuclear matter were the only active suppression mechanism. For collisions involving more than ~80 participant nucleons, we find that an extra suppression is present. This result is in qualitative agreement with previous Pb-Pb measurements by the NA50 experiment, but no theoretical explanation is presently able to coherently describe both results.
The cross sections of forward emission of one, two and three neutrons by 158A GeV 115In nuclei in collisions with Al, Cu, Sn and Pb targets are reported. The measurements were performed in the framework of the ALICE-LUMI experiment at the SPS facility at CERN. Various corrections accounting for the absorption of beam nuclei and produced neutrons in target material and surrounding air were introduced. The corrected cross section data are compared with the predictions of the RELDIS model for electromagnetic fragmentation of 115In in ultraperipheral collisions, as well as with the results of the abrasion-ablation model for neutron emission in hadronic interactions. The measured neutron emission cross sections well agree with the RELDIS results, with the exception of In-Al collisions where the measured cross sections are larger compared to RELDIS. This is attributed to a relatively large contribution of hadronic fragmentation of In on Al target with respect to electromagnetic fragmentation, on the contrary to similar measurements performed earlier with 30A GeV 208Pb colliding with Al.
NA60 is a fixed-target experiment at the CERN SPS which measured dimuon production in nucleus-nucleus and proton-nucleus collisions. In this paper we report on a precision measurement of low-mass muon pairs in 158 AGeV indium-indium collisions. A significant excess of pairs is observed above the yield expected from neutral meson decays. The excess can be isolated by subtraction of expected sources, thanks to the excellent mass resolution and large sample size.
The NA60 experiment at the CERN-SPS is devoted to the study of dimuon production in heavy-ion and proton-nucleus collisions. We present preliminary results from the analysis of Indium-Indium collisions at 158 GeV per nucleon. The topics covered are low mass vector meson production, J/psi production and suppression, and the feasibility of the open charm measurement from the dimuon continuum in the mass range below the J/psi peak.
We look for fluctuations expected for the QCD critical point using an intermittency analysis in the transverse momentum phase space of protons produced around midrapidity in the 12.5% most central C+C, Si+Si and Pb+Pb collisions at the maximum SPS energy of 158$A$~GeV. We find evidence of power-law fluctuations for the Si+Si data. The fitted power-law exponent $phi_{2} = 0.96^{+0.38}_{-0.25}text{ (stat.)}$ $pm 0.16text{ (syst.)}$ is consistent with the va-lue expected for critical fluctuations. Power-law fluctuations had previously also been observed in low-mass $pi^+ pi^-$ pairs in the same Si+Si collisions.