Isospin correlations in high-energy heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

We study the posibility of large isospin fluctuations in high-energy heavy-ion collisions by assuming that pions are produced semiclassically both directly and in pairs through the isovector channel. The leading-particle effect and the factorization property of the scattering amplitude in the impact parameter space are used to define the classical pion field. In terms of the joint probability function $P_{II_{3}}(n_{0},n_{\_})$ for producing $n_{0}$ neutral and $n_{\_}$ negative pions from a definite isospin state $II_{3}$ of the incoming leading-particle system we calculate the two pion correlation parameters $f_{2,n_{\_}}^{0}$ and the average number of neutral pions $(< n_{0} >_{n_{\_}})$ as a function of negative pions $(n_{\_})$ produced. We show that only direct production of pions without isovector pairs leads to large isospin fluctuations.