Production of π0 and η mesons in Cu+Au collisions at sNN =200 GeV

Summary, in English

Production of π0 and η mesons has been measured at midrapidity in Cu+Au collisions at sNN=200GeV. Measurements were performed in π0(η)→γγ decay channel in the 1(2)-20GeV/c transverse momentum range. A strong suppression is observed for π0 and η meson production at high transverse momentum in central Cu+Au collisions relative to the p+p results scaled by the number of nucleon-nucleon collisions. In central collisions the suppression is similar to Au+Au with comparable nuclear overlap. The η/π0 ratio measured as a function of transverse momentum is consistent with mT-scaling parametrization down to pT=2GeV/c, its asymptotic value is constant and consistent with Au+Au and p+p and does not show any significant dependence on collision centrality. Similar results were obtained in hadron-hadron, hadron-nucleus, and nucleus-nucleus collisions as well as in e+e- collisions in a range of collision energies sNN=3-1800 GeV. This suggests that the quark-gluon-plasma medium produced in Cu+Cu collisions either does not affect the jet fragmentation into light mesons or it affects the π0 and η the same way. © 2018 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

• Author: C. Aidala; Peter Christiansen; Anders Oskarsson; David Silvermyr; Evert Stenlund; L. Zou
• Department/s: eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration; Particle and nuclear physics
• Publishing year: 2018
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Physical Review C
• Volume: 98
• Issue: 5
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.98.054903
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Topic: Subatomic Physics
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 2469-9985