Central Coulomb Effects on Pion Interferometry

Using a simple final-state rescattering model coupled with a simple Coulomb model, the effects of the central Coulomb potential on pion interferometry measurements in 158 GeV/nucleon Pb+Pb collisions are explored. Although the central Coulomb potential does not introduce correlations between pions, it does prevent an accurate measurement of the momentum difference. This momentum difference smearing effect leads to a reduction in the measured correlation radii and lambda parameters. These distortions are important in 158 GeV/nucleon Pb+Pb collisions because of large source sizes and the strong central Coulomb potential.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, 2 postscript figure

Extracting the hadronization timescale in sqrt{s}=7 TeV proton-proton collisions from pion and kaon femtoscopy

A hadronic rescattering model with the proper hadronization time width as the free parameter is compared with charged pion and charged and neutral kaon femtoscopy measurements from the LHC ALICE experiment for sqrt{s}=7 TeV proton-proton collisions. Comparisons between the model and measurements are made for one-dimensional source parameters in several charged multiplicity and transverse particle pair momentum bins. It is found that a reasonable description of the measured source parameters by the model is obtained for a hadronization proper time width of 0.4 +- 0.1 fm/c, which is in agreement with an estimate based on the uncertainty principle. The model calculations also suggest that 1) some form of collectivity is necessary to describe the multiplicity dependence of the measured radius parameters, and 2) the underlying physical size and timescale of the collision is significantly larger than what the extracted radius parameters and hadronization proper time width would imply.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys.

Signatures for flow effects in s**(1/2) = 200 GeV proton-proton collisions

A simple model based on relativistic geometry and final-state hadronic rescattering is used to predict pion source parameters extracted in two-pion femtoscopy studies of proton-proton collisions at s**(1/2) = 200 GeV. From studying the momentum and particle multiplicity dependences of these parameters in the context of this model and assuming a very short hadronization time, flow-like behavior is seen which resembles the flow behavior commonly observed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Revie

UrQMD calculations of two-pion HBT correlations in p+p and Pb+Pb collisions at LHC energies

Two-pion Hanbury-Brown-Twiss (HBT) correlations for p+p and central Pb+Pb collisions at the Large-Hadron-Collider (LHC) energies are investigated with the ultra-relativistic quantum molecular dynamics model combined with a correlation afterburner. The transverse momentum dependence of the Pratt-Bertsch HBT radii $R_{long}$, $R_{out}$, and $R_{side}$ is extracted from a three-dimensional Gaussian fit to the correlator in the longitudinal co-moving system. In the p+p case, the dependence of correlations on the charged particle multiplicity and formation time is explored and the data allows to constrain the formation time in the string fragmentation to $\tau_f \leq 0.8$ fm/c. In the Pb+Pb case, it is found that $R_{out}$ is overpredicted by nearly 50%. The LHC results are also compared to data from the STAR experiment at RHIC. For both energies we find that the calculated $R_{out}/R_{side}$ ratio is always larger than data, indicating that the emission in the model is less explosive than observed in the data.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Talk given by Qingfeng Li at the 11th International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (NN2012), San Antonio, Texas, USA, May 27-June 1, 2012. To appear in the NN2012 Proceedings in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS

K0s-K0s correlations in 7 TeV pp collisions from the ALICE experiment at the LHC

Identical neutral kaon pair correlations are measured in 7 TeV pp collisions in the ALICE experiment. K0s-K0s correlation functions are formed in 3 multiplicity X 4 kT bins. The femtoscopic kaon source parameters Rinv and lambda are extracted from these correlation functions by fitting a (femtoscopy) X (PYTHIA) model to them, PYTHIA accounting for the non-flat baseline found in pp collisions. Source parameters are obtained from a fit which includes quantum statistics and final-state interactions of the a0/f0 resonance. K0s-K0s correlations show a systematic increase in Rinv for increasing multiplicity bin and decreasing Rinv for increasing kT bin as seen in pi-pi correlations in the pp system, as well as seen in heavy-ion collisions. Also, K0s-K0s correlations are observed to smoothly extend this pi-pi Rinv behavior for the pp system up to about three times higher kT than the kT range measured in pi-pi correlations.Comment: Proceedings of the Quark Matter 2011 Conference, 4 pages, 5 figure