Baryon rapidity loss in relativistic Au + Au collisions.
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2001;
86:1970-1973. [PMID:
11289832 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.86.1970]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2000] [Indexed: 05/23/2023]
Abstract
An excitation function of proton rapidity distributions for different centralities is reported from AGS Experiment E917 for Au+Au collisions at 6, 8, and 10.8 GeV/nucleon. The rapidity distributions from peripheral collisions have a valley at midrapidity which smoothly change to distributions that display a broad peak at midrapidity for central collisions. The mean rapidity loss increases with increasing beam energy, whereas the fraction of protons consistent with isotropic emission from a stationary source at midrapidity decreases with increasing beam energy. The data suggest that the stopping is substantially less than complete at these energies.
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