Suppression of Psi' and J/Psi in High-Energy Heavy-Ion Collisions

Abstract

The experimental ratio of ${\psi }^{\prime }$ to $J/\psi$ is approximately a constant in $pA$ collisions, but decreases as the transverse energy increases in nucleus-nucleus collisions. These peculiar features can be explained as arising from approximately the same $c\bar{c}$-baryon absorption cross section for ${\psi }^{\prime }$ and $J/\psi$ but greater disruption probabilities for ${\psi }^{\prime }$ than for $J/\psi$ due to the interaction of the $c\bar{c}$ system with soft particles produced in baryon-baryon collisions.

Comments: 10 pages (REVTeX), includes 3 uuencoded compressed postscript figures