1997/01/31 by U. Heinz, Ulrich Heinz, Qinghui Zhang +1 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevc.56.426
published as Phys.Rev.C56:426-431,1997 · 16 pages, to be published in Phys. Rev. C
arxiv created 1997/04/17 · openalex publication_date 1997/07/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We address the question, what additional information on the source shape and dynamics can be extracted from three-particle Bose-Einstein correlations. For chaotic sources the true three-particle correlation term is shown to be sensitive to the momentum dependence of the saddle point of the source and to its asymmetries around that point. For partially coherent sources the three-pion correlator allows one to measure the degree of coherence without contamination from resonance decays. We derive the most general Gaussian parametrization of the two- and three-particle correlator for this case and discuss the space-time interpretation of the corresponding parameters.