Abstract
Bose-Einstein correlations (BECs) of identical hadrons reveal information about hadron creation from the strongly interacting matter formed in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. The measurement of three-particle correlations may in particular shed light on hadron creation mechanisms beyond thermal/chaotic emission. In this paper, we show the status of PHENIX measurements of three-pion correlations as a function of momentum differences within the triplets. We analyze the shape of the correlation functions through the assumption of Lévy sources and a proper treatment of the Coulomb interaction within the triplets. We measure the three-particle correlation strength ( λ 3 ), which, together with the two-particle correlation strength λ 2 , encodes information about hadron creation mechanisms. From a consistent analysis of two- and three-particle correlation strengths, we establish a new experimental measure of thermalization and coherence in the source.
Highlights
In particle and nuclear physics, intensity interferometry provides a direct experimental method for the determination of sizes, shapes and lifetimes of particle-emitting sources.In particular, boson interferometry provides a powerful tool for the investigation of the spacetime structure of particle production processes, as Bose–Einstein correlations (BECs) of two or three identical bosons reflect both geometrical and dynamical properties of the particle-radiating source.The size of the source in heavy-ion collisions q has been found to decrease with increasing transverse momentum, pt, or transverse mass, mt = m2 + p2t, of the bosons
Boson interferometry provides a powerful tool for the investigation of the spacetime structure of particle production processes, as Bose–Einstein correlations (BECs) of two or three identical bosons reflect both geometrical and dynamical properties of the particle-radiating source
The data used in the analyses were collected by the PHENIX detector in 2010; 7.3 billion minimum bias Au+Au collisions at s NN = 200 GeV were recorded
Summary
The size (radius) of the source in heavy-ion collisions q has been found to decrease with increasing transverse momentum, pt , or transverse mass, mt = m2 + p2t , of the bosons This effect can be explained by hydrodynamical models [6,7]. [8], the two-particle correlation strength (λ2 ) was determined These measurements of λ2 , when combined with this analysis, may test the limits of the core–halo model [9,10,11] with a thermalized core. For this purpose, we introduce a new parameter, κ3 , which is a function of λ3 and λ2. The main purpose of the present work is to investigate whether κ3 indicates extra effects or not
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