Speaker
Description
The investigation of nuclear matter effects in relativistic ion collisions, especially quark-gluon plasma (QGP) ones, is one of the main goals of PHENIX experiment [1]. To study the dynamics of collisions at high energies, strange hadron production is considered as a significant tool. Due to its strange quark content, the $K^{*0}$ meson is a good probe for the investigation of such QGP effects as strangeness enhancement and flavor dependence of partonic energy loss [2]. New results of the PHENIX experiment on hadron production and elliptic flow in small collision systems suggested the possibility of QGP formation in such systems [3]. Thus, the measurement of $K^{*0}$ mesons production in small collision systems allows to investigate aspects of QGP formation depending on the collision system size. We have performed analyses of $K^{*0}$ meson production in wide set of small systems such as p+Al, p+Au, and $^{3}$He+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV.
In this talk, we present invariant transverse momentum ($p_{T}$) spectra and nuclear modification factors ($R_{AB}$) of $K^{*0}$ meson as a function of $p_{T}$ measured in p+Al and p/$^{3}$He+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV. Nuclear modification factors of K0 meson in p+Al and p/d/$^{3}$He+Au collisions are in a good agreement at $p_{T}$ < 2 GeV/c whereas at intermediate-pT range (2 GeV/c < $p_{T}$ < 5 GeV/c) a hint of ordering is observed. $R_{AB}$ values for $K^{*0}$, $\varphi$, and $\pi^{0}$ mesons fall on the same curve in all centrality bins in favor of strangeness enhancement effect absence.
- K. Adcox et al., Nucl. Phys. A 757, 184-283 (2005)
- V.P. Kondratev and G.A. Feofilov, Elementary Particle and Nuclear Physics 42, 6 (2005)
- A. Accardi et al., Phys. Lett. B 586, 244-253 (2004)
