arXiv · nucl-th/0006056
Transverse momentum dependence of directed particle flow at 160 AGeV
Abstract
The transverse momentum ($p_t$) dependence of hadron flow at SPS energies is studied. In particular, the nucleon and pion flow in S+S and Pb+Pb collisions at 160 AGeV is investigated. For simulations the microscopic quark-gluon string model (QGSM) is applied. It is found that the directed flow of pions $v_1(y, Δp_t)$ changes sign from a negative slope in the low-$p_t$ region to a positive slope at $p_t \geq 0.6$ GeV/c as recently also observed experimentally. The change of the flow behaviour can be explained by early emission times for high-$p_t$ pions. We further found that a substantial amount of high-$p_t$ pions are produced in the very first primary NN collisions at the surface region of the touching nuclei. Thus, at SPS energies high-$p_t$ nucleons seem to be a better probe for the hot and dense early phase of nuclear collisions than high-$p_t$ pions. Both, in the light and in the heavy system the pion directed flow $v_1(p_t, Δy)$ exhibits large negative values when the transverse momentum approaches zero, as also seen experimentally in Pb+Pb collisions. It is found that this effect is caused by nuclear shadowing. The proton flow, in contrary, shows the typical linear increase with rising $p_t$.
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E. E. Zabrodin, C. Fuchs, L. V. Bravina, Amand Faessler. 2000-10-20. Transverse momentum dependence of directed particle flow at 160 AGeV. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevc.63.034902
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