Nuclear-modification factor of charged hadrons at forward and backward rapidity in p + Al and p + Au collisions at sNN =200 GeV

Summary, in English

The PHENIX experiment has studied nuclear effects in p+Al and p+Au collisions at sNN=200GeV on charged hadron production at forward rapidity (1.4<η<2.4, p-going direction) and backward rapidity (-2.2<η<-1.2, A-going direction). Such effects are quantified by measuring nuclear modification factors as a function of transverse momentum and pseudorapidity in various collision multiplicity selections. In central p+Al and p+Au collisions, a suppression (enhancement) is observed at forward (backward) rapidity compared to the binary scaled yields in p+p collisions. The magnitude of enhancement at backward rapidity is larger in p+Au collisions than in p+Al collisions, which have a smaller number of participating nucleons. However, the results at forward rapidity show a similar suppression within uncertainties. The results in the integrated centrality are compared with calculations using nuclear parton distribution functions, which show a reasonable agreement at the forward rapidity but fail to describe the backward rapidity enhancement.

• Author: C. Aidala; Anders Oskarsson; David Silvermyr; L. Zou
• Department/s: Particle and nuclear physics
• Publishing year: 2020-03-16
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Physical Review C
• Volume: 101
• Issue: 3
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.101.034910
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Topic: Subatomic Physics
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 2469-9985