P. Force

Study of the isospin symmetry breaking in the light quark sea of the nucleon from the Drell-Yan process

Abstract The ratio of cross-sections for muon pair production through the Drell-Yan process in p − p and p − d reactions has been measured at y ≈ 0, with 450 GeVc incident protons. The asymmetry A DY = δ pp − δ pn δ pp +δ pn amounts to −0.09 ± 0.02 ± 0.025. The ratio u d of the nucleon sea structure functions derived from this measurement amounts to 0.51 ± 0.04 ± 0.05 at x = 0.18 and suggests that isospin symmetry is broken in the light quark sea of the nucleon.

Anomalous J/psi suppression in Pb-Pb interactions at 158 GeV/c per nucleon

Abstract The Drell-Yan and J/t) cross-sections measured in Pb-Pb collisions are compared with the values extrapolated from the results obtained in proton and light ion induced reactions. While the Drell-Yan production exhibits the normal expected behaviour, the yield of J/e in Pb-Pb interactions is abnormally low, as it lies 9 standard deviations below the expected value. Moreover, the departure from the expected behaviour increases significantly from peripheral to central collisions. 0 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. 1. Introduction It is now a well established prediction from lattice QCD calculations [l] that, under extreme energy density conditions, ordinary hadronic matter will un- dergo a phase transition to the so-called Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). The main feature of this phase of matter is that the elementary constituents of hadrons are decon- fined, i.e. that quarks and gluons do not form any more individual hadrons and are free to move within the medium. From the very beginning and before the start up of the experimental search in the field, it was pointed out [2] that deconfinement would induce color screening which in turn would prevent J/+ formation, making of “J/I+!I suppression” one of the gold-plated signatures for QGP experimental evi- dence. Starting from 1986 on, high energy ion beams (0, S and finally Pb) became available at CERN. They made possible the search for QGP formation in ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions where it was believed that the required conditions could be reached at best. Experiment NA38 developed an extensive program studying charmonium in p-A and A-B reactions with incident proton, oxygen and sul- fur ions on different nuclear targets. The results obtained for J/I) production [3] led to a solid sys- tematic experimental reference. They triggered a considerable amount of theoretical work [4] and can be understood, according to some authors, in an overall coherent framework [5]. In this letter, we compare the Pb-Pb values mea- sured by the NA50 experiment, as reported in the preceding letter [6], with the values previously ob- tained with lighter incident ions. 2.

Charmonium production and nuclear absorption in p-A interactions at 450 GeV

Abstract.The production of

Evidence for radial flow of thermal dileptons in high-energy nuclear collisions

{\rm J}/\psi

J/ψ and ψ′ production in p, O and S induced reactions at SPS energies

and

J/ψ, ψ′ and Drell-Yan production in S-U interactions at 200 GeV per nucleon

\psi^\prime

J/ψ, ψ′ and Drell-Yan production in pp and pd interactions at 450 GeV/c

charmonium states in proton-nucleus interactions has been investigated by the NA50 experiment, at the CERN SPS. High statistics data sets were collected with collisions induced by 450 GeV protons incident on Be, Al, Cu, Ag and W targets. The

Charmonia production in 450-GeV/c proton induced reactions

{\rm J}/\psi

J/ψ and muon-pair cross-sections in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at 200 GeV per nucleon

and

φ, ϱ, and ω production in pU, OU and SU reactions at 200 GeV per nucleon

\psi^\prime