STUDIES IN RAPIDITY AND pT-SPECTRA OF PIONS IN HIGH ENERGY NN, NA AND AA COLLISIONS: A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH

Abstract

The present paper aims at testing a very simple approach to interpret the characteristics of inclusive production of pions in high energy NA and AA collisions by a somewhat in-depth analysis of the same for NN interactions; and also at reporting here thus some interesting observations made on the nature of rapidity and transverse momentum spectra of the produced pions. And this approach is built upon a newly offered master formula holding the key for converting the results of high energy nucleon–nucleon (NN) collision to the corresponding observables on differential and inclusive cross-sections for both nucleon–nucleus and nucleus–nucleus (heavy ion) collisions in a generalized form. The proposed formulae, used in a somewhat phenomenological way, can provide modestly reliable parametrization of data in the broad range of collision energy and the varied range of projectile-target combinations. This opens up the possibility of understanding in a quite unified manner the large amount of data on the rapidity and transverse momentum spectra in a wide range of interactions and energies starting right from ISR, rather Bevelac, to the relativistic heavy ion collisions (RHIC) via the various collider scales of energy. The agreements between the data and calculations, in most cases, are quite satisfactory both qualitatively and quantitatively. While highlighting this success, the limitation of the approach has also been pointed out in the end as clearly and categorically as possible.