Do p+p Collisions Flow at RHIC? Understanding One-Particle Distributions, Multiplicity Evolution, and Conservation Laws

Collective, explosive flow in central heavy ion collisions manifests itself in the mass dependence of \(p_T\) distributions and femtoscopic length scales, measured in the soft sector (\(p_T\lesssim 1\) GeV/c). Measured \(p_T\) distributions from proton-proton collisions differ significantly from tho...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2009-09
Main Authors: Chajȩcki, Zbigniew, Mike, Lisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Balances (scales)
Conservation laws
Dependence
Energy conservation
Hazards
Heavy ions
Ionic collisions
Particle collisions
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Summary:Collective, explosive flow in central heavy ion collisions manifests itself in the mass dependence of \(p_T\) distributions and femtoscopic length scales, measured in the soft sector (\(p_T\lesssim 1\) GeV/c). Measured \(p_T\) distributions from proton-proton collisions differ significantly from those from heavy ion collisions. This has been taken as evidence that p+p collisions generate little collective flow, a conclusion in line with naive expectations. We point out possible hazards of ignoring phase-space restrictions due to conservation laws when comparing high- and low-multiplicity final states. Already in two-particle correlation functions, we see clear signals of such phase-space restrictions in low-multiplicity collisions at RHIC. We discuss how these same effects, then, {\it must} appear in the single particle spectra. We argue that the effects of energy and momentum conservation actually dominate the observed systematics, and that \(p+p\) collisions may be much more similar to heavy ion collisions than generally thought.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.0907.3870