Measurement of K0S and K∗0 in p + p, d + Au, and Cu + Cu collisions at √sNN = 200 GeV

Scientific paper - Original scientific paper

• Author: A. Adare
• Author: ...
• Author: Mihael Makek
• Author: ...
• Author: L. Zolin
• Collaboration: PHENIX Collaboration
• Author's institution: University of Zagreb; Faculty of Science; (Department of Physics)
• Scientific / art field, discipline and subdiscipline: NATURAL SCIENCES; Physics

Abstract (english)

The PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has performed a systematic study of K0 S and K∗0 meson production at midrapidity in p + p, d + Au, and Cu + Cu collisions at √sNN = 200 GeV. The K0S and K∗0 mesons are reconstructed via their K0 S → π0(→ γ γ )π0(→ γ γ ) and K∗0 → K±π∓ decay modes, respectively. The measured transverse-momentum spectra are used to determine the nuclear modification factor of K0S and K∗0 mesons in d + Au and Cu + Cu collisions at different centralities. In the d + Au collisions, the nuclear modification factor of K0S and K∗0 mesons is almost constant as a function of transverse momentum and is consistent with unity, showing that cold-nuclear-matter effects do not play a significant role in the measured kinematic range. In Cu + Cu collisions, within the uncertainties no nuclear modification is registered in peripheral collisions. In central collisions, both mesons show suppression relative to the expectations from the p + p yield scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions in the Cu + Cu system. In the pT range 2–5 GeV/c, the strange mesons (K0 S , K∗0) similarly to the φ meson with hidden strangeness, show an intermediate suppression between the more suppressed light quark mesons (π0) and the nonsuppressed baryons (p, p¯). At higher transverse momentum, pT > 5 GeV/c, production of all particles is similarly suppressed by a factor of ≈2.

• Keywords (english): mesons; cold nuclear matter effects; quark-gluon plasma; nuclear modification factor; pp collisions; d+Au collisions; Cu+Cu collisions; PHENIX; RHIC
• Language: english
• Publication type: Scientific paper - Original scientific paper
• Publication status: Published
• Peer review: Peer review - international
• Publication version: Published version
• Journal title: Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics
• Numbering: vol. 90, 54905
• p-ISSN: 0556-2813
• e-ISSN: 1089-490X
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.90.054905
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:217:198851
• Publication: 2014
• Document URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevC.90.054905
• Type of resource: Text
• Access conditions: Open access
• Public note: © 2014 American Physical Society. Received 23 May 2014; published 7 November 2014.
• Created on: 2019-12-29 15:43:20