No Arabic abstract
Measurements of the midrapidity transverse energy distribution, $dEt/deta$, are presented for $p$$+$$p$, $d$$+$Au, and Au$+$Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV and additionally for Au$+$Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=62.4$ and 130 GeV. The $dEt/deta$ distributions are first compared with the number of nucleon participants $N_{rm part}$, number of binary collisions $N_{rm coll}$, and number of constituent-quark participants $N_{qp}$ calculated from a Glauber model based on the nuclear geometry. For Au$+$Au, $mean{dEt/deta}/N_{rm part}$ increases with $N_{rm part}$, while $mean{dEt/deta}/N_{qp}$ is approximately constant for all three energies. This indicates that the two component ansatz, $dE_{T}/deta propto (1-x) N_{rm part}/2 + x N_{rm coll}$, which has been used to represent $E_T$ distributions, is simply a proxy for $N_{qp}$, and that the $N_{rm coll}$ term does not represent a hard-scattering component in $E_T$ distributions. The $dE_{T}/deta$ distributions of Au$+$Au and $d$$+$Au are then calculated from the measured $p$$+$$p$ $E_T$ distribution using two models that both reproduce the Au$+$Au data. However, while the number-of-constituent-quark-participant model agrees well with the $d$$+$Au data, the additive-quark model does not.
Multiparticle production at high energies is described in terms of color strings stretched between the projectile and target. As string density increases, overlap among the strings leads to cluster formation. At some critical density a macroscopic cluster appears, spanning the entire system. This marks the percolation phase transition. Data from p+p, d+Au and Au+Au collisions at 200 GeV has been analyzed using the STAR detector to obtain the percolation density parameter, $eta$. For 200 GeV Au+Au collisions, the value of $eta$ is found to lie above the critical percolation threshold, while for 200 GeV d+Au collisions it is below the critical value. This supports the idea of string percolation, which at high enough string density is a possible mechanism to explore the hadronic phase transition to a quark-gluon plasma.
We report $J/psi$ spectra for transverse momenta $p_T$> 5 GeV/$c$ at mid-rapidity in p+p and Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_{NN}) = 200 GeV.The inclusive $J/psi$ spectrum and the extracted $B$-hadron feed-down are compared to models incorporating different production mechanisms. We observe significant suppression of the $J/psi$ yields for $p_T$> 5 GeV/$c$ in 0-30% Au+Au collisions relative to the p+p yield scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions in Au+Au collisions. In 30-60% collisions, no such suppression is observed.The level of suppression is consistently less than that of high-$p_T$ $pi^{pm}$ and low-$p_T$ $J/psi$.
We report the measurements of $Sigma (1385)$ and $Lambda (1520)$ production in $p+p$ and $Au+Au$ collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV from the STAR collaboration. The yields and the $p_{T}$ spectra are presented and discussed in terms of chemical and thermal freeze-out conditions and compared to model predictions. Thermal and microscopic models do not adequately describe the yields of all the resonances produced in central $Au+Au$ collisions. Our results indicate that there may be a time-span between chemical and thermal freeze-out during which elastic hadronic interactions occur.
We present measurements of $e^+e^-$ production at midrapidity in Au$+$Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}$ = 200 GeV. The invariant yield is studied within the PHENIX detector acceptance over a wide range of mass ($m_{ee} <$ 5 GeV/$c^2$) and pair transverse momentum ($p_T$ $<$ 5 GeV/$c$), for minimum bias and for five centrality classes. The ee yield is compared to the expectations from known sources. In the low-mass region ($m_{ee}=0.30$--0.76 GeV/$c^2$) there is an enhancement that increases with centrality and is distributed over the entire pair pt range measured. It is significantly smaller than previously reported by the PHENIX experiment and amounts to $2.3pm0.4({rm stat})pm0.4({rm syst})pm0.2^{rm model}$ or to $1.7pm0.3({rm stat})pm0.3({rm syst})pm0.2^{rm model}$ for minimum bias collisions when the open-heavy-flavor contribution is calculated with {sc pythia} or {sc mc@nlo}, respectively. The inclusive mass and $p_T$ distributions as well as the centrality dependence are well reproduced by model calculations where the enhancement mainly originates from the melting of the $rho$ meson resonance as the system approaches chiral symmetry restoration. In the intermediate-mass region ($m_{ee}$ = 1.2--2.8 GeV/$c^2$), the data hint at a significant contribution in addition to the yield from the semileptonic decays of heavy-flavor mesons.
We report on the measurement of $rm{J}/psi$ production in the dielectron channel at mid-rapidity (|y|<1) in p+p and d+Au collisions at $sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV from the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The transverse momentum $p_{T}$ spectra in p+p for $p_{T}$ < 4 GeV/c and d+Au collisions for $p_{T}$ < 3 GeV/c are presented. These measurements extend the STAR coverage for $rm{J}/psi$ production in p+p collisions to low $p_{T}$. The $<p_{T}^{2}>$ from the measured $rm{J}/psi$ invariant cross section in p+p and d+Au collisions are evaluated and compared to similar measurements at other collision energies. The nuclear modification factor for $rm{J}/psi$ is extracted as a function of $p_{T}$ and collision centrality in d+Au and compared to model calculations using the modified nuclear Parton Distribution Function and a final-state $rm{J}/psi$ nuclear absorption cross section.