arXiv:hep-ph/0208161·v1·High Energy Physics — Phenomenology
Phi meson production at RHIC
L. Bravina (1)🇷🇺 · L. Csernai (2)🇳🇴 · Amand Faessler (3)🇩🇪 · C. Fuchs (3)🇩🇪 · S. Panitkin (4)🇺🇸 · Nu Xu (5)🇺🇸 · E. Zabrodin (1,3) ((1) Institute for Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University, Russia; (2) Department of Physics, University of Bergen, Norway; (3)-Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Tuebingen, Germany; (4) BNL, Upton NY, USA; (5) LBNL, Berkeley CA, USA)🇷🇺
Abstract
The production of phi mesons in Au+Au collisions at RHIC and their propagation in a hot and dense nuclear medium is studied within the microscopic quark-gluon string model. The inverse slope parameter of the transverse mass distribution agrees well with that extracted from the STAR data, while the absolute yield of phi is underestimated by a factor 2. It appears that the fusion of strings alone cannot increase the phi yield either. Less than 30% of detectable phi's experience elastic scattering, this rate is insufficient for the full thermalization of phi. The directed flow of phi at |y|<2 demonstrates strong antiflow behavior, whereas its elliptic flow rises up to about 3.5% in the same rapidity interval. As a function of transverse momentum it rises linearly with increasing p_t, in agreement with the STAR data, and saturates at p_t > 2 GeV/c.
Comments: Talk at Quark Matter'02, 4 pages incl. 5 eps-figures