No Arabic abstract
The NA60 experiment has studied low-mass muon pair production in proton-nucleus collisions with a system of Be, Cu, In, W, Pb and U targets using a 400 GeV/$c$ proton beam at the CERN SPS. The mass spectrum is well described by the superposition of the two-body and Dalitz decays of the light neutral mesons $eta$, $rho$, $omega$, $eta$ and $phi$. A new high-precision measurement of the electromagnetic transition form factors of the $eta$ and $omega$ mesons is presented, complemented with a measurement of the temperature parameter of the $rho$ meson in cold nuclear matter. The $pt$ spectra for the $omega$ and $phi$ mesons are extracted in the full $pt$ range accessible, up to $pt = 2$ GeV/$c$. The nuclear dependence of the production cross sections for the $eta$, $omega$ and $phi$ mesons has been investigated in terms of the power law $sigma_mathrm{pA} propto mathrm{A}^alpha$, and the $alpha$ parameter was studied as a function of $pt$.
The PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has measured low mass vector meson, $omega$, $rho$, and $phi$, production through the dimuon decay channel at forward rapidity ($1.2<|y|<2.2$) in $p$$+$$p$ collisions at $sqrt{s}=200$ GeV. The differential cross sections for these mesons are measured as a function of both $p_T$ and rapidity. We also report the integrated differential cross sections over $1<p_T<7$ GeV/$c$ and $1.2<|y|<2.2$: $dsigma/dy(omega+rhorightarrowmumu) = 80 pm 6 mbox{(stat)} pm 12 mbox{(syst)}$ nb and $dsigma/dy(phirightarrowmumu) = 27 pm 3 mbox{(stat)} pm 4 mbox{(syst)}$ nb. These results are compared with midrapidity measurements and calculations.
The differential cross section for the production of direct photons in p+p collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV at midrapidity was measured in the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Inclusive-direct photons were measured in the transverse-momentum range from 5.5--25 GeV/c, extending the range beyond previous measurements. Event structure was studied with an isolation criterion. Next-to-leading-order perturbative-quantum-chromodynamics calculations give a good description of the spectrum. When the cross section is expressed versus x_T, the PHENIX data are seen to be in agreement with measurements from other experiments at different center-of-mass energies.
The cross section of bottom quark-antiquark ($bbar{b}$) production in $p$+$p$ collisions at $sqrt{s}=510$ GeV is measured with the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The results are based on the yield of high mass, like-sign muon pairs measured within the PHENIX muon arm acceptance ($1.2<|y|<2.2$). The $bbar{b}$ signal is extracted from like-sign dimuons by utilizing the unique properties of neutral $B$ meson oscillation. We report a differential cross section of $dsigma_{bbar{b}rightarrow mu^pmmu^pm}/dy = 0.16 pm 0.01~(mbox{stat}) pm 0.02~(mbox{syst}) pm 0.02~(mbox{global})$ nb for like-sign muons in the rapidity and $p_T$ ranges $1.2<|y|<2.2$ and $p_T>1$ GeV/$c$, and dimuon mass of 5--10 GeV/$c^2$. The extrapolated total cross section at this energy for $bbar{b}$ production is $13.1 pm 0.6~(mbox{stat}) pm 1.5~(mbox{syst}) pm 2.7~(mbox{global})~mu$b. The total cross section is compared to a perturbative quantum chromodynamics calculation and is consistent within uncertainties. The azimuthal opening angle between muon pairs from $bbar{b}$ decays and their $p_T$ distributions are compared to distributions generated using {sc ps pythia 6}, which includes next-to-leading order processes. The azimuthal correlations and pair $p_T$ distribution are not very well described by {sc pythia} calculations, but are still consistent within uncertainties. Flavor creation and flavor excitation subprocesses are favored over gluon splitting.
We report on charmonium measurements [J/psi(1S), psi(2S), and chi_c(1P)] in p+p collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV. We find that the fraction of J/psi coming from the feed-down decay of psi and chi_c in the midrapidity region ($|eta|<0.35$) is 9.6+/-2.4% and 32+/-9%, respectively. We also report new, higher statistics p_T and rapidity dependencies of the J/psi yield via dielectron decay in the same midrapidity range and at forward rapidity (1.2<|eta|<2.4) via dimuon decay. These results are compared with measurements from other experiments and discussed in the context of current charmonium production models.
The NA60 experiment has studied low-mass muon pair production in proton-nucleus collisions with a system of Be, Cu, In, W, Pb and U targets, using a 400 GeV proton beam at the CERN SPS. The transverse momentum spectra of the $rho/omega$ and $phi$ mesons are measured in the full $p_mathrm{T}$ range accessible, from $p_mathrm{T} = 0$ up to 2 GeV/$c$. The nuclear dependence of the production cross sections of the $eta$, $omega$ and $phi$ mesons has been found to be consistent with the power law $sigma_mathrm{pA} propto mathrm{A}^alpha$, with the $alpha$ parameter increasing as a function of $p_mathrm{T}$ for all the particles, and an approximate hierarchy $alpha_eta approx alpha_phi > alpha_omega$. The cross section ratios $sigma_eta/sigma_omega$, $sigma_rho/sigma_omega$ and $sigma_phi/sigma_omega$ have been studied as a function of the size A of the production target, and an increase of the $eta$ and $phi$ yields relative to the $omega$ is observed from p-Be to p-U collisions.