R. S. Longacre

First results from the H0 di-baryon search and hyperon production measurements by the AGS Experiment 896.

Abstract The AGS Experiment 896 was designed to study strangeness production in Au—Au collisions at 11.6A GeV/c, in particular the formation of a six-quark di-baryon the H 0 . Heavy ion collisions provide favorable conditions for the H 0 formation either via coalescence of two Λ particles (owing to the large Λ production cross section) or direct production from the possible formation of a quark-gluon plasma. E896 also measured strange meson and baryon distributions from mid-rapidity. Preliminary results from this experiment are presented as well as details of the expected sensitivity for the H 0 search.

Can doubly strange dibaryon resonances be discovered at RHIC

The baryon-baryon continuum invariant mass spectrum generated from relativistic nucleus + nucleus collision data may reveal the existence of doubly strange dibaryons not stable against strong decay if they lie within a few MeV of threshold. Furthermore, since the dominant component of these states is a superposition of two color-octet clusters which can be produced intermediately in a color-deconfined quark-gluon plasma (QGP), an enhanced production of dibaryon resonances could be a signal of QGP formation. A total of eight, doubly strange dibaryon states are considered for experimental search using the STAR detector (solenoidal tracker at RHIC) at the new Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). These states may decay to {lambda}{lambda} and/or p{xi}{sup -}, depending on the resonance energy. STARs large acceptance, precision tracking and vertex reconstruction capabilities, and large data volume capacity, make it an ideal instrument to use for such a search. Detector performance and analysis sensitivity are studied as a function of resonance production rate and width for one particular dibaryon which can directly strong decay to p{xi}{sup -}, but not {lambda}{lambda}. Results indicate that such resonances may be discovered using STAR if the resonance production rates are comparable to coalescence model predictions for dibaryon bound states. (c)morexa0» 2000 The American Physical Society.«xa0less