1998/09/30 by H. Heiselberg · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #hep-ph #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.82.2052
published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 82 (1999) 2052-2055 · Revised version, to appear in Phys. Rev. Letters
arxiv created 1999/01/27 · openalex publication_date 1999/03/08 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The nuclear overlap zone in noncentral relativistic heavy ion collisions is azimuthally very asymmetric. By varying the angle between the axes of deformation and the transverse direction of the pair momenta, the transverse Hanbury-Brown--Twiss radii oscillate in a characteristic way. It is shown that these oscillations allow determination of source sizes, deformations, as well as the opacity and duration of emission of the source created in any noncentral high energy nuclear collisions. The behavior of the physical quantities with centrality of the collisions is discussed---in particular, changes caused by a possible phase transition to a quark-gluon plasma.