System size and energy dependence of $\phi$ meson production at RHIC

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the production of $$ mesons varies with system size and collision energy in heavy ion collisions at RHIC, revealing increased yields with energy and system size, and comparing with open-strange particles.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of $$ meson production dependence on system size and energy at RHIC energies, including comparisons with open-strange particles.

Findings

Participant-scaled $$ yields exceed 1 in heavy ion collisions.

Yields increase with collision energy.

Comparison with open-strange particles suggests specific physics implications.

Abstract

We present a system size and energy dependence of $\phi$ meson production in Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=62.4 GeV and 200 GeV measured by the STAR experiment at RHIC. We find that the number of participant scaled $\phi$ meson yields in heavy ion collisions over that of p+p collisions are larger than 1 and increase with collision energy. We compare the results with those of open-strange particles and discuss the physics implication.