.
The centrality determination for Au + Au collisions at 1.23
A
GeV, as measured with HADES at the GSI-SIS18, is described. In order to extract collision geometry related quantities, such as the ...average impact parameter or number of participating nucleons, a Glauber Monte Carlo approach is employed. For the application of this model to collisions at this relatively low centre-of-mass energy of
s
NN
=
2
.
42
GeV special investigations were performed. As a result a well defined procedure to determine centrality classes for ongoing analyses of heavy-ion data is established.
.
The combination of a production target for secondary beams, an optimized ion optical beam line setting, in-beam detectors for minimum ionizing particles with high rate capability, and an efficient ...large acceptance spectrometer around the reaction target constitutes an experimental opportunity to study in detail hadronic interactions utilizing pion beams impinging on nucleons and nuclei. For the 0.4-2.0GeV/c pion momentum regime such a facility is located at the heavy ion synchrotron accelerator SIS18 in Darmstadt (Germany). The layout of the apparatus, performance of its components and encouraging results from a first commissioning run are presented.
We present high-statistic data on charged-pion emission from Au + Au collisions at
s
NN
=
2.4
GeV
(corresponding to
E
beam
=
1.23
A GeV
) in four centrality classes in the range 0–40% of the most ...central collisions. The data are analyzed as a function of transverse momentum, transverse mass, rapidity, and polar angle. Pion multiplicity per participating nucleon decreases moderately with increasing centrality. The polar angular distributions are found to be non-isotropic even for the most central event class. Our results on pion multiplicity fit well into the general trend of the available world data, but undershoot by
2.5
σ
data from the FOPI experiment measured at slightly lower beam energy. We compare our data to state-of-the-art transport model calculations (PHSD, IQMD, PHQMD, GiBUU and SMASH) and find substantial differences between the measurement and the results of these calculations.
.
We report on the investigation of dielectron production in tagged quasi-free neutron-proton collisions by using a deuteron beam of kinetic energy 1.25GeV/u impinging on a liquid hydrogen target. ...Our measurements with HADES confirm a significant excess of
e
+
e
-
pairs above the
π
0
mass in the exclusive channel
d
p
→
n
p
e
+
e
-
(
p
s
p
e
c
t
)
as compared to the exclusive channel
p
p
e
+
e
-
measured in proton-proton collisions at the same energy. That excess points to different bremsstrahlung production mechanisms. Two models were evaluated for the role of the charged pion exchange between nucleons and double-
Δ
excitation combined with intermediate
ρ
-meson production. Differential cross sections as a function of the
e
+
e
-
invariant mass and of the angles of the virtual photon, proton and electrons provide valuable constraints and encourage further investigations on both experimental and theoretical sides.
Radiative transition of an excited baryon to a nucleon with emission of a virtual massive photon converting to dielectron pair (Dalitz decays) provides important information about baryon-photon ...coupling at low
q
2
in timelike region. A prominent enhancement in the respective electromagnetic transition Form Factors (etFF) at
q
2
near vector mesons
ρ/ω
poles has been predicted by various calculations reflecting strong baryon-vector meson couplings. The understanding of these couplings is also of primary importance for the interpretation of the emissivity of QCD matter studied in heavy ion collisions via dilepton emission. Dedicated measurements of baryon Dalitz decays in proton-proton and pion-proton scattering with HADES detector at GSI/FAIR are presented and discussed. The relevance of these studies for the interpretation of results obtained from heavy ion reactions is elucidated on the example of the HADES results.
The global polarization of Λ hyperons along the total orbital angular momentum of a relativistic heavy-ion collision is presented based on the high statistics data samples collected in Au+Au ...collisions at sNN=2.4 GeV and Ag+Ag at 2.55 GeV with the High-Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer (HADES) at GSI, Darmstadt. This is the first measurement below the strangeness production threshold in nucleon-nucleon collisions. Results are reported as a function of the collision centrality as well as a function of the hyperon's transverse momentum (pT) and rapidity (yCM) for the range of centrality 0–40%. We observe a strong centrality dependence of the polarization with an increasing signal towards peripheral collisions. For mid-central (20 – 40%) collisions the polarization magnitudes are 〈PΛ〉(%)=6.8±1.3(stat.)±2.1(syst.) for Au+Au and 〈PΛ〉(%)=6.2±0.4(stat.)±0.6(syst.) for Ag+Ag, which are the largest values observed so far. This observation thus provides a continuation of the increasing trend previously observed by STAR and contrasts expectations from recent theoretical calculations predicting a maximum in the region of collision energies about 3 GeV. The observed polarization is of a similar magnitude as predicted by 3D-fluid-dynamics and the UrQMD plus thermal vorticity model and significantly above results from the AMPT model.
We present data on charged kaons (K±) and ϕ mesons in Au(1.23A GeV)+Au collisions. It is the first simultaneous measurement of K− and ϕ mesons in central heavy-ion collisions below a kinetic beam ...energy of 10A GeV. The ϕ/K− multiplicity ratio is found to be surprisingly high with a value of 0.52±0.16 and shows no dependence on the centrality of the collision. Consequently, the different slopes of the K+ and K− transverse-mass spectra can be explained solely by feed-down, which substantially softens the spectra of K− mesons. Hence, in contrast to the commonly adapted argumentation in literature, the different slopes do not necessarily imply diverging freeze-out temperatures of K+ and K− mesons caused by different couplings to baryons.
High-precision measurements of flow coefficients
v
n
(
n
=
1
-
4
) for protons, deuterons and tritons relative to the first-order spectator plane have been performed in Au+Au collisions at
s
NN
=
2.4
... GeV with the High-Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer (HADES) at the SIS18/GSI. Flow coefficients are studied as a function of transverse momentum
p
t
and rapidity
y
cm
over a large region of phase-space and for several classes of collision centrality. A clear mass hierarchy, as expected by relativistic hydrodynamics, is found for the slope of
v
1
,
d
v
1
/
d
y
′
|
y
′
=
0
where
y
′
is the scaled rapidity, and for
v
2
at mid-rapidity. Scaling with the number of nucleons is observed for the
p
t
dependence of
v
2
and
v
4
at mid-rapidity, which is indicative for nuclear coalescence as the main process responsible for light nuclei formation.
v
2
is found to scale with the initial eccentricity
⟨
ϵ
2
⟩
, while
v
4
scales with
⟨
ϵ
2
⟩
2
and
⟨
ϵ
4
⟩
. The multi-differential high-precision data on
v
1
,
v
2
,
v
3
, and
v
4
provides important constraints on the equation-of-state of compressed baryonic matter.
We investigate identical pion HBT intensity interferometry in central Au+Au collisions at 1.23A GeV. High-statistics π−π− and π+π+ data are measured with HADES at SIS18/GSI. The radius parameters, ...derived from the correlation function depending on relative momenta in the longitudinally comoving system and parametrized as three-dimensional Gaussian distribution, are studied as function of transverse momentum. A substantial charge-sign difference of the source radii is found, particularly pronounced at low transverse momentum. The extracted source parameters agree well with a smooth extrapolation of the center-of-mass energy dependence established at higher energies, extending the corresponding excitation functions down towards a very low energy.