Quarkonium Suppression at Hera-B

by Maarten Bruinsma (NIKHEF)

Thursday 5 Jul 2001, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

40-SS-C01 (CERN)

The suppressed production of J/Psi's in central Pb-Pb collisions show a significant deviation with expectations based on nuclear absorption, and constitutes a signature of the formation of a deconfined state of matter. However, a good understanding of nuclear effects in J/Psi production is still lacking. Precision measurements on quarkonium suppression in pA collisions can provide valuable input for the interpretation of existing and upcoming data from heavy ion experiments. Hera-B is a fixed target hadronic B factory at DESY, using eight wires of different materials in the halo of the HERA proton beam. Its trigger system is specifically designed to select events containing J/Psi candidates. The expected large amount of such events will enable precision measurements of nuclear suppression of J/Psi, Psi', Chi_c and Upsilons in pA collisions. Besides providing data in the largely uncharted kinematic domain of negative x_F, Hera-B will be able to reconstruct a large fraction of the associated particles in the event. Such measurements provide a direct gauge for suppression patterns in heavy ion collisions. The Hera-B spectrometer and its potential for measuring nuclear effects in the production of heavy quarkonia will be presented.

Organiser(s): Yiota Foka, Guy Paic and Urs Wiedemann / EP Division

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