Medium Modifcations of Mesons in Elementary Reactions and Heavy-Ion Collisions
Abstract
Description
Experimental searches for modifications of vector mesons in the nuclear medium are reviewed. Data on $ρ,ω$ and $Φ$ mesons are presented. The results have been obtained in elementary reactions with proton and photon beams as well as in heavy-ion collisions. Compared to the free particle properties, the $ω$ and $Φ$ meson are found to drop in mass at normal nuclear matter density by 9-14% and 3.5% whereas their widths are reported to increase by factors of about 16 and 3.6, respectively. For the $ρ$ meson, conflicting results on in-medium mass shifts and broadening have been published. The experimental data are compared to recent model calculations.
Erice 2007 Proceedings
Erice 2007 Proceedings