Relating RHIC and SPS Heavy Ion Data

Abstract

We have demonstrated recently that RHIC heavy ion data concerning particle production at small and intermediate transverse momenta become very transparent, if one realizes that there are two sources of particles production: the corona -- due to the interactions of the peripheral nucleons of either nucleus, and the core -- representing the high density central zone. We extend our analysis to SPS heavy ion data. Again, we find that the nontrivial centrality dependence of particle production (being stronger than at RHIC) is simply due to an increasing corona contribution with decreasing centrality. The core contribution shows no centrality dependence (concerning particle ratios), and can be described in exactly the same way as at RHIC, with one exception: there is somewhat less collective radial flow at SPS compared to RHIC. Apart of this (and a trivial volume effect), the core portions produced in different colliding systems at different energies (RHIC, SPS) look the same.