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Nucleon-Nucleon Collisions 27
3. Nucleon-Nucleon Collisions
are dissipated by the collisions, with the release of energy into other
degrees of freedom. One would like to know whether the longitudinal
energy dissipated in a nucleus-nucleus collision leads to energy den
sities of matter high enough to allow the formation of a quark-gluon
plasma. The search for any exotic behavior of quark-gluon plasma
in nucleus-nucleus collisions also requires a comparison with what
is expected from phenomenological nucleon-nucleon extrapolations.
It is therefore necessary to determine what is expected from such
extrapolations based on information from nucleon-nucleon data. We
shall discuss these topics in later chapters. Here, we summarize the
relevant information from nucleon-nucleon collisions.
upper horizontal axis in the same figure, we also give the correspond
ing laboratory momentum piab of the incident proton beam particles
for collisions with a fixed proton target. The solid curve in Fig. 3.1 is
the fit by Thome et al to the pp data [5] parametrized in the form
momentum fractions after the collision (see Section 3.2 below). Only
about half of the center-of-mass energy is used to produce particles.
In consequence, the multiplicity of charged particles produced in a
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Fig. 3.3 The differential invariant cross section Edajdp for 7r+ in pp reac
tions at ^/s=30.6 GeV. The solid points are the experimental data points
from Ref. [4]. The solid curves are from the parametrization of Eq. (3.5).
Fig. 3.4 Invariant cross section for the production of different particles in
pp reactions at ^/5=30.6 GeV and 6CM = 89°, as a function of the transverse
mass WIT [4], The solid curve is from the parametrization of Eq. (3.7).
for the invariant cross section for the production of different kinds
of particles, for pp collisions at yfs = 30.6 GeV and #CM = 89°,
as a function of the transverse mass mx [4]. The solid curve is the
parametrization of the invariant cross section in the form [9]
> e-m?lT
E-MZ--
3 A,___ (3.7)
'd p ~ {mT/GeVy> t
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with T = 0.290 GeV, A = 1.5, and A=13.9 (mb-c 3 /GeV 2 ). The data
in Fig. 3.4 indicate that the invariant cross sections for the production
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F i g . 3.5 The invariant cross section Eda/d3p for the reaction p + p —> p+X
at ptab=100 GeV/c as a function of the transverse momentum pT for x = 0.6
and x = 0.4. The data are from Ref. [2].
shape which depends on the degree of energy loss [2]. For a pp inelastic
collision leading to a proton with x close to unity, the invariant cross
section Eda/d3p is in the form of an exponential e~apT, while for
lower values of x it is in the form of a gaussian e~~ T. We show
in Fig. 3.5 an example of data for p + p —> p + X at an incident
momentum of 100 GeV/c [2]. The invariant cross section at x = 0.6
can be approximated as the dashed curve in Fig. 3.5 given by
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<PT>=; ) ^ 9 I
- GeV/c = 0.45 GeV/c (3.9)
p +p r> p + X
!
• f75 GeV/c
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o
•
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• »
1-1 * p * i
• ) o
, o o
0.0 0./ 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
X
F i g . 3.6 The differential cross section da/dx for the reaction p+p -* p + X
from Ref. [2].
dx rrn,
With da/dx approximately a constant, the rapidity distribution
for the leading proton is approximately
-~ oc ey~yb. (3.12)
The average rapidity after a pp inelastic collision is then
Thus, the distribution of Eq. (3.10) implies that on the average, the
incident proton loses about one unit of rapidity in a pp inelastic
collision.
In nucleus-nucleus collisions, the nucleons of one nucleus suffer
many collisions with nucleons of the other nucleus. In such a multiple-
collision process, the loss of the incident energy and momentum can
be quite large and may lead to the "stopping" of the baryons in the
center-of-mass system. We shall return to this topic later.
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The production of particles and the energy loss of the baryons are
intimately related because the total energy of the system must be
conserved. There is, in fact, an experimental correlation between the
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