Measurement of KS0K_S^0 and K0K^{*0} in p+pp+p, d+Aud+Au, and Cu+CuCu+Cu collisions at sNN=200\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200 GeV

Collaboration
May 14, 2014
18 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.C 90 (2014) 5, 054905
  • Published: Nov 7, 2014
e-Print:
Experiments:

Citations per year

201420172020202320240123456
Abstract: (APS)

The PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has performed a systematic study of KS0 and K*0 meson production at midrapidity in p+p,d+Au, and Cu+Cu collisions at sNN=200 GeV. The KS0 and K*0 mesons are reconstructed via their KS0π0(γγ)π0(γγ) and K*0K±π decay modes, respectively. The measured transverse-momentum spectra are used to determine the nuclear modification factor of KS0 and K*0 mesons in d+Au and Cu+Cu collisions at different centralities. In the d+Au collisions, the nuclear modification factor of KS0 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 25 GeV/c, the strange mesons (KS0,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.

Note:
  • 590 authors, 22 pages, 14 figures, 5 tables. Submitted to Phys. Rev. C Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.html
  • 25.75.Dw
  • transverse momentum dependence
  • transverse momentum: momentum spectrum
  • suppression
  • impact parameter
  • strange meson: yield
  • heavy ion: scattering
  • PHENIX
  • nuclear matter: effect
  • dependence