Hanbury Brown - Twiss Interferometry in High Energy Nuclear and Particle Physics
Abstract
Description
I review recent applications of two-particle intensity interferometry in high energy physics, concentrating on relativistic heavy ion collisions. By measuring hadronic single-particle spectra and two-particle correlations in hadron-hadron or heavy-ion collisions, the size and dynamical state of the collision fireball at freeze-out can be reconstructed. I discuss the relevant theoretical methods and their limitations. By applying the formalism to recent pion correlation data from Pb+Pb collisions at CERN we demonstrate that the collision zone has undergone strong transverse growth before freeze-out (by a factor 2 in each direction), and that it expands both longitudinally and transversally. From the thermal and flow energy density at freeze-out the energy density at the onset of transverse expansion can be estimated from conservation laws. It comfortably exceeds the critical value for the transition to color deconfined matter.
Overview talk given at CRIS'98 (Catania, June 8-12, 1998), to appear in "CRIS'98: Measuring the size of things in the Universe: HBT interferometry and heavy ion physics", (S. Costa et al., eds.), World Scientific, Singapore, 1998. (29 pages, 4 figures)
Overview talk given at CRIS'98 (Catania, June 8-12, 1998), to appear in "CRIS'98: Measuring the size of things in the Universe: HBT interferometry and heavy ion physics", (S. Costa et al., eds.), World Scientific, Singapore, 1998. (29 pages, 4 figures)