Collisions between prolate uranium nuclei are used to study how particle production and azimuthal anisotropies depend on initial geometry in heavy-ion collisions. We report the two- and four-particle ...cumulants, v_{2}{2} and v_{2}{4}, for charged hadrons from U+U collisions at sqrts_{NN}=193 GeV and Au+Au collisions at sqrts_{NN}=200 GeV. Nearly fully overlapping collisions are selected based on the energy deposited by spectators in zero degree calorimeters (ZDCs). Within this sample, the observed dependence of v_{2}{2} on multiplicity demonstrates that ZDC information combined with multiplicity can preferentially select different overlap configurations in U+U collisions. We also show that v_{2} vs multiplicity can be better described by models, such as gluon saturation or quark participant models, that eliminate the dependence of the multiplicity on the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions.
Results from the data obtained in the first physics run of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have shown surprisingly large elliptic flow and suprisingly small HBT radii. Attempts to explain ...both results in a consistant picture have so far been unsuccessful. The present work shows that a simple thermal-like initial state model coupled to a hadronic rescattering calculation can explain reasonably well both elliptic flow and HBT results from RHIC. The calculation suggests a very early hadronization time of about 1 fm/c after the initial collision of the nuclei.
In this paper, we present results from a harmonic decomposition of two-particle azimuthal correlations measured with the STAR detector in Au + Au collisions for energies ranging from √sNN = 7.7 to ...200 GeV. The third harmonic v$2\atop{3}${ 2 } = <cos3(Φ1 - Φ)> , where Φ1 - Φ2 is the angular difference in azimuth, is studied as a function of the pseudorapidity difference between particle pairs Δη = η1-η2 . Nonzero v$2\atop{3}${ 2 } is directly related to the previously observed large- Δη narrow- ΔΦ ridge correlations and has been shown in models to be sensitive to the existence of a low viscosity quark gluon plasma phase. For sufficiently central collisions, v$2\atop{3}${ 2 } persist down to an energy of 7.7 GeV, suggesting that quark gluon plasma may be created even in these low energy collisions. In peripheral collisions at these low energies, however, v$2\atop{3}${ 2 } is consistent with zero. Finally, when scaled by the pseudorapidity density of charged-particle multiplicity per participating nucleon pair, v$2\atop{3}${ 2 } for central collisions shows a minimum near √sNN = 20 GeV .
We report on the measurement of J/ψ production in the dielectron channel at midrapidity (|y|<1) in p+p and d+Au collisions at sNN=200GeV from the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion ...Collider. The transverse momentum pT spectra in p+p for pT<4GeV/c and d+Au collisions for pT<3GeV/c are presented. These measurements extend the STAR coverage for J/ψ production in p+p collisions to low pT. The (pT2) from the measured J/ψ invariant cross section in p+p and d+Au collisions are evaluated and compared to similar measurements at other collision energies. The nuclear modification factor for J/ψ is extracted as a function of pT and collision centrality in d+Au and compared to model calculations using the modified nuclear parton distribution function and a final-state J/ψ nuclear absorption cross section.
The STAR Collaboration reports the first observation of exclusive rho(0) photoproduction, AuAu-->AuAurho(0), and rho(0) production accompanied by mutual nuclear Coulomb excitation, ...AuAu-->Au*Au*rho(0), in ultraperipheral heavy-ion collisions. The rho(0) have low transverse momenta, consistent with coherent coupling to both nuclei. The cross sections at sqrts(NN)=130 GeV agree with theoretical predictions treating rho(0) production and Coulomb excitation as independent processes.