Abstract
The longitudinal proton-proton femtoscopy (HBT) correlation function, based on the idea that in a heavy ion collision at $\sqrt{s} \lesssim 20$ GeV stopped protons are likely to be separated in configuration space, is evaluated. It shows a characteristic oscillation which appears sufficiently pronounced to be accessible in experiment. The proposed measurement is essential for estimating the baryon density in the central rapidity region, and can be also viewed as an (almost) direct verification of the Lorentz contraction of the fast-moving nucleus.
Highlights
The search for a possible phase structure of QCD has been a focus point in strong interaction research
Based on a si√mple string model, Ref. [9] found that for collision energies s 10 GeV the stopped nucleons will not overlap significantly in configuration space. This observation was based on a rather simple model and it would be much better if this observation could be verified or ruled out in experiments. This is the purpose of this paper, where we propose to measure longitudinal Hanbury Brown–Twiss (HBT)–type correlations of the stopped protons, i.e., protons at ycm ≈ 0 with transverse momentum not exceeding, say, 1 GeV
We have presented a calculation of the longitudinal femtoscopy correlation function of stopped protons based on the observation that in a heavy-ion collision
Summary
The search for a possible phase structure of QCD has been a focus point in strong interaction research. One would expect that the nucleons from the right-going nucleus will end up at positions in configuration space with z > 0 and the left-going ones at z < 0 so that the stopped nucleons may be distributed bimodally in configuration space This observation was recently pointed out in Ref. [9] found that for collision energies s 10 GeV the stopped nucleons will not overlap significantly in configuration space. This observation was based on a rather simple model and it would be much better if this observation could be verified or ruled out in experiments. We calculate the resulting femtoscopy correlation function before we close with a discussion of the various issues and limitations of this study
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