No Arabic abstract
The elliptic flow of Lambda hyperons has been measured by the NA49 collaboration at the CERN-SPS in semi-central Pb+Pb collisions at 158A GeV. The standard method of correlating particles with the event plane was used. Measurements of v2 near mid-rapidity are reported as a function of rapidity, centrality and transverse momentum. Elliptic flow of Lambda particles increases both with the impact parameter and with the transverse momentum. It is compared with v2 for pions and protons as well as with model calculations. The observation of significant elliptic flow and its mass dependence suggest strong collective behaviour of the matter produced in collisions of heavy nuclei already at the SPS. Scaling properties of elliptic flow of different particle species have been tested at 158A GeV. The limited pT range of the data does not allow for a decisive test of the coalescence model.
Results of a two-particle correlation analysis of high-$p_t$ charged particles in Pb-Au collisions at 158$A$ GeV/$c$ are presented. The data have been recorded by the CERES experiment at the CERN-SPS. The correlations are studied as function of transverse momentum, particle charge and collision centrality. We observe a jet-like structure in the vicinity of a high-$p_t$ trigger particle and a broad back-to-back distribution. The yields of associated particles per trigger show a strong dependence on the trigger/associate charge combination. A comparison to PYTHIA confirms the jet-like pattern at the near-side but suggests a strong modification at the away-side, implying significant energy transfer of the hard-scattered parton to the medium.
The yields of (anti-)protons were measured by the NA49 Collaboration in centrality selected Pb+Pb collisions at 40A GeV and 158A GeV. Particle identification was obtained in the laboratory momentum range from 5 to 63 GeV/c by the measurement of the energy loss dE/dx in the TPC detector gas. The corresponding rapidity coverage extends 1.6 units from mid-rapidity into the forward hemisphere. Transverse mass spectra, the rapidity dependences of the average transverse mass, and rapidity density distributions were studied as a function of collision centrality. The values of the average transverse mass as well as the midrapidity yields of protons when normalized to the number of wounded nucleons show only modest centrality dependences. In contrast, the shape of the rapidity distribution changes significantly with collision centrality, especially at 40A GeV. The experimental results are compared to calculations of the HSD and UrQMD transport models.
The momentum correlation between protons and lambda particles emitted from central Pb+Pb collisions at sqrt(s_{NN}) = 17.3 GeV was studied by the NA49 experiment at the CERN SPS. A clear enhancement is observed for small relative momenta (q_{inv} < 0.2 GeV). By fitting a theoretical model, which uses the strong interaction between the proton and the lambda in a given pair, to the measured data a value for the effective source size is deduced. Assuming a static Gaussian source distribution we derive an effective radius parameter of R_G = 3.02 pm 0.20$(stat.)^{+0.44}_{-0.16}(syst.) fm.
We present results on transverse momentum correlations of charged particle pairs produced in Pb-Au collisions at 158$A$ GeV/$c$ at the Super Proton Synchrotron. The transverse momentum correlations have been studied as a function of collision centrality, angular separation of the particle pairs, transverse momentum and charge sign. We demonstrate that the results are in agreement with previous findings in scale-independent analyses at the same beam energy. Employing the two-particle momentum correlator $<Delta p_{t,i}, Delta p_{t,j}>$ and the cumulative $p_t$ variable $x(p_t)$, we identify, using the scale-dependent approach presented in this paper, different sources contributing to the measured correlations, such as quantum and Coulomb correlations, elliptic flow and mini-jet fragmentation.
A novel approach, the identity method, was used for particle identification and the study of fluctuations of particle yield ratios in Pb+Pb collisions at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). This procedure allows to unfold the moments of the unknown multiplicity distributions of protons (p), kaons (K), pions ($pi$) and electrons (e). Using these moments the excitation function of the fluctuation measure $ u_{text{text{dyn}}}$[A,B] was measured, with A and B denoting different particle types. The obtained energy dependence of $ u_{text{dyn}}$ agrees with previously published NA49 results on the related measure $sigma_{text{dyn}}$. Moreover, $ u_{text{dyn}}$ was found to depend on the phase space coverage for [K,p] and [K,$pi$] pairs. This feature most likely explains the reported differences between measurements of NA49 and those of STAR in central Au+Au collisions.