PHENIX Measurements of Heavy Flavor in Small Systems

The study of heavy flavor production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions is a sensitive probe of the hot and dense matter created in such collisions. Installation of silicon vertex detectors in the PHENIX experiment, and increased performance of the BNL RHIC collider allowed collection of large amount of data on heavy flavor production in small colliding systems. In this talk we will present recent PHENIX results on open heavy flavor and quarkonia production in p+p, p+A, d+A, and He3+A colliding systems in a broad rapidity range, and discuss how these measurements help us to better understand all stages of nuclear collisions at high energy.

On transverse momentum spectra of negative pions in 12C+181Ta collisions at 4.2A GeV/c

We studied the dependences of the experimental transverse momentum spectra of the negative pions, produced in minimum bias 12 C +181 Ta collisions at a momentum of 4.2 GeV/c per nucleon, on the collision centrality and the pion rapidity range. To examine quantitatively, the change in the shape of the pt spectra of π- mesons with the change of collision centrality and the pion rapidity range, all the extracted pt spectra were fitted by the four different functions commonly used for describing the hadron spectra. The extracted values of the spectral temperatures T1 and T2 were consistently larger for the pt spectra of π- mesons coming from midrapidity range as compared to those of the negative pions generated in the target and projectile fragmentation regions. The spectral temperatures of the negative pions coming from projectile fragmentation region proved to be larger than the respective temperatures of the negative pions coming from target fragmentation region. The extracted spectral temperatures T1 and T2 of the pt spectra of π- mesons were compatible within the uncertainties for the peripheral, semicentral and central 12 C +181 Ta collision events, selected using the number of participant protons. It was observed that Hagedorn and Boltzmann functions are more appropriate for describing the transverse momentum spectra of the negative pions as contrasted to Simple Exponential and Gaussian functions.

On centrality and rapidity dependences of transverse momentum spectra of negative pions in 12C + 12C collisions at 4.2 GeV/c per nucleon

The dependences of the experimental transverse momentum spectra of the negative pions, produced in minimum bias 12 C + 12 C collisions at a momentum of 4.2A GeV/c, on the collision centrality and the pion rapidity range were studied. To analyze quantitatively the change in the pt spectra of π- mesons with the changes of collision centrality and pion rapidity range, the extracted pt spectra were fitted by Hagedorn, Boltzmann, Simple Exponential and Gaussian functions. The values of the extracted spectral temperatures T1 and T2 were consistently larger for the pt spectra of π- mesons coming from midrapidity range as compared to those of the negative pions generated in the target and projectile fragmentation regions. The spectral temperatures T1 and T2 extracted from fitting the pt spectra of π- mesons in range pt = 0.1–1.2 GeV/c practically coincided with each other in peripheral, semicentral and central 12 C + 12 C collision events, and thus did not show any collision centrality dependence. However, the values of T1 and T2 extracted from fitting in range pt = 0.1–0.7 GeV/c were consistently and noticeably larger in case of central collisions as compared to peripheral and semicentral 12 C + 12 C collisions. Hagedorn and Boltzmann functions provided significantly better fits of the transverse momentum spectra of the negative pions with the physically acceptable values of the extracted temperatures as compared to Gaussian and Simple Exponential functions.

THREE-PARTICLE RAPIDITY CORRELATIONS IN PROTON-PROTON INTERACTIONS AT ISR ENERGIES

Measurements are presented of short range three-particle rapidity correlation in pp interactions at c.m. energies [Formula: see text], 44 and 62 GeV. The data were obtained at the CERN Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR) using the Split Field Magnet Detector (SFM) with a minimum bias trigger. Three-particle short range rapidity correlations are observed for the (-+-) and (+-+) combinations; no short-range correlation is observed for the (---) and (+++) configurations. The rapidity range of the three-particle correlations is approximately the same as for the two-particle correlations.

e+−e− HADRONIC MULTIPLICITY DISTRIBUTIONS

We have have analyzed the 29 GeV multiplicity data for e+−e−→ hadrons using the partially coherent laser distribution (PCLD). The latter interpolates between the negative binomial and Poisson distributions as the ratio S/N of coherent/incoherent multiplicity varies from zero to infinity. The negative binomial gives an excellent fit for rather large values of the cell parameter k. Equally good fits (for full and partial rapidity range, and for the forward/backward 2 jet correlation) are obtained for the mostly coherent (almost Poissonian) PCLD with small values of k (equal to the number of jets). The reasons for the existence of this tradeoff are explained in detail. The existence of the resulting ambiguity is traced to the insensitivity of the probability distribution to phase information in the hadronic density matrix. We recommend the study of higher order correlations (intensity interferometry) among like-sign particles to resolve this question.