Source Chaoticity from Two- and Three-Pion Correlations in Au+Au collisions at

Abstract

We consistently analyze two-pion correlation functions and three-pion correlation functions of 130A GeV Au+Au collisions measured at RHIC, applying three models of partially coherent pion sources. The effect of long-lived resonances on the chaoticity in the two-pion correlation function is estimated on the basis of a statistical model. We find that the chaoticity extracted from the three-pion correlation function is consistent with that extracted from the two-pion correlation function at vanishing relative momenta after the subtraction of the contribution of the long-lived resonance decays. All three models indicate that pions are emitted from the mixture of a chaotic source and coherent sources in the 130A GeV Au+Au collisions.